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(,.^ ' 



THE HISTORY 

OF THE STATE OF 

RHODE ISLAND 

AND 

PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS 



BY 



THOMAS WILLIAMS BICKNELL, LL.D. 

Author of The History of Banington; The Story of Dr. John Clarke; 
etc., etc. Member of the American Historical Association; President 
of the Rhode Island Citizens' Historical Association. 



ASSISTED BY AN ABLE BOARD OF ADVISORS 




VOLUME ]. 



NEW YORK 

THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY, INC., 

1920 

I 






COPYRIGHT, 1920 
THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL. SOCIETY, INC. 






<./jo 



FOREWORD ^^' 



It is finished. This history, begun in my eighty-third year, 1917, 
was completed in my eighty-fifth, and tiie Foreword runs into my eighty- 
sixth. 

To Rhode Island rightly belongs the honor of establishing and illus- 
trating, in a well organized commonwealth, the principles of civil and 
religious freedom, for the first time in the history of the world. The 
principle was not original with our Rhode Island founders. The struggle 
for soul freedom was centuries old, its fate sealed in fire and blood. A 
new world was needed for the expression of liberty under law — of the 
release of the freeman from his tyrant master. 

Four years ago (191 5) I wrote and published "The Story of Dr. 
John Cl.\rke." That work was the revelation of a new chapter in 
American history. In it I attempted to show that the founding of the 
towns of Portsmouth and Newport on the Island of Rhode Island, respec- 
tively in 1638 and 1639, and the organization of the Colony of Rhode 
Island in 1640-41, were the first organic, wisely directed and successful 
ventures in civil and religious Democracy, a Free Church in a Free State. 
In the four years that have elapsed, while I have received many endorse- 
ments of my position, I have yet to read the first vital criticism of my 
position. 

That ivork declared Dr. John Clarke of Neivport, and not Roger 
Williams of Providence, the founder of the modern Democratic State, 
with freedom in religious concerns, its chief corner stone. 

A few years ago, in conversation with the chief professor in history 
of a New England college, I boldly asked, "Did Roger Williams ever 
clearly avow the principles and doctrine of Civil and Religious Liberty 
before his banishment from Massachusetts Bay Colony?" His reply 
startled me. "No, and he never did aftenvards." I was prepared for the 
"No," but not for climax, "He never did aftenvards." 

A little later I met an historical leader, the chief of a National His- 
torical Institution, and asked him, "Was not Dr. John Clarke of Rhode 
Island the first expounder of Civil and Religious Liberty in New Eng- 
land?" The oracle replied, "Pursue/' and I have pursued, and the four 
volumes of the History of Rhode Island are the result of that quest. 

For sixty-five years my life was devoted to educational pursuits, — my 
own preparatory, and then constructive work for others in Slate and 
Nation. History and genealogy were delightful avocations from the 
first. My first historic flight was to the ridge-pole of my father's attic, 



iv HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

where by the light through an open scuttle I first saw the autographs of 
Governors Greene and Stephen Hopkins and that of Samuel Ward, Sec- 
retary of State and Acting Governor, on Colonial Commissions. It was 
a childhood dream that I might write a history. 

The last twenty years since my return to Providence have afforded 
me time and opportunity for study, reflection and clear conclusions on 
questions problematical and debatable in historic circles on Rhode Island 
history. In the babel of writings of accepted historical authorities, I 
found a reason for studying the original documents as the basis of cor- 
rect historical judgments. With the same facts to deal with, how was it 
possible for a jury of twelve honest men to reach twelve honest but 
different verdicts? Several reasons occurred to me — among them were 
different view-points, differing understanding of the facts, different inter- 
pretation of motives of action, self-interest, temperament, social, civil or 
religious bias, personal relations, ct cetera. From such variants, con- 
sequents differ. 

This history of Rhode Island is, in all important features, my own 
work. It is in many ways a new revelation of events and consequently 
revolutionary in its conclusions. I have endeavored honestly to discover 
historic facts and to record correct judgments thereon. 

In order to understand aright my interpretation of Rhode Island 
history, the following guides must be followed : 

First — Rhode Island w.\s Rhode Island on the Island of Aquid- 
NECK, and not Providence Plantations at the head of Narragan- 
SETT Bay. 

Second — Boston, in the Bay Colony, was the hirthplace of 
CIVIL and religious liberty in America and in the world in the 
liberal school of Anne Hutchinson. 

Third: The first compact in the world, looki.ng to the found- 
ing OF "A BoDiE Politick," on the bro.\d platform of religious 
freedom, was signed in Boston, March 7, 1638, by William Cod- 
dington. Dr. John Clarke, and twenty-one others. 

Fourth — This compact took an organic form and practical 
accomplishment at Pocasset (Portsmouth), on Aquidnegk, on the 
13TH day of May, 1638, in the settlement and organization of the 
first town founded in Rhode Island. 

Fifth — Newport, on Rhode Island, founded on the same prin- 
ciples AS Portsmouth, was organized and set up a Democratic form 
of government on the 28TI1 of April, 1639. 

Sixth — In 1640, the two towns united to form a Colonial gov- 
ernment, and IN 1641 this "Bodie Politick" was declared a DEMOC- 
RACIE," under majority rule, and "that none bee accounted a de- 
linquent for doctrine." 



FOREWORD V 

Seventh — At Providence, Roger Williams organized no town, as the 
settlers were averse to "Magistrates," but did form a Proprietary, or land 
corporation, which continued its life nearly two centuries. A Proprietary 
was a business enterprise without civil or religious functions. 

Eighth — At some unknown date, Richard Scott and others peti- 
tioned to be admitted to the Proprietary, lo be governed by the rules of 
that body, "only in civil things." This paper has been erroneously styled 
"A Compact for Civil and Religious Freedom." 

Ninth — Providence was not incorporated as a town until 1649, thir- 
teen years after the coming of Roger Williams, in 1636. Town officers 
were then elected for the first time and town government instituted, but no 
record exists of any declaration of rights or of foundation principles of 
government. At that dale Mr. Williams was residing at the trading post 
at Narragansett. 

These are a few of the great basic facts, of which this new history is 
the development. While Mr. Williams is recognized as an interesting 
early Colonial figure, he cannot long hold the primacy accorded him for a 
century, against the protests of men who were his immediate successors. 
Dr. John Clarke is the real hero of that heroic time, and the real Rhode 
Island of Colonial days was Rhode Island on Aquidneck, the scene of his 
great labors, not Providence Plantations, the home of Mr. Williams. 

An honor, second to none perhaps, belongs to Roger Williams. His 
friendly relations with the Narragansetts and his intervention in pre- 
venting the alliance of this great New England tribe with the warlike 
Pequots and Mohawks, saved the utter annihilation of the New England 
Colonies in 1637. As the Saviour of the infant Colonies, Mr. Williams is 
entitled to all honor, for he jeopardized his own life to save the new 
civilization. 

My indebtedness is so large and widespread that a chapter would be 
required for full acknowledgment. From Winthrop's journal and Wil- 
liams' letters to the latest discovered MSS. covers a period of nearly 
three centuries, and a vast field of printed and AISS. historic literature. 
Of course, .Vrnold's "History of Rhode Island" ( 1853), as the most com- 
plete and reliable annalist record, has been always at hand, as have the 
ten volumes of "Rhode Island Colonial Records" (1863). 

My Advisory Board, eminent in scholarship and in civil and eccle- 
siastical distinction, has been generous in criticism and just in treat- 
ment. Their names are worthy of historic transmission. Correspondence 
with various of its members has been frequent and valuable. Among 
those who have contributed advisory assistance are the following 
named: U. S. Senator LeBaron B. Colt, LL.D. ; Mr. Walter Allen 
Read, General Treasurer of Rhode Island ; the Rev. Gains G. Atkins, 



vi HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

D.D., author and litterateur; Walter E. Ranger, LL.D., Commis- 
sioner of Public Schools; Mr. Charles Sisson; Rev. Peter E. Blessing, 
D.D. ; Mr. Richard W. Jennings; Mr. George A. Moriarty, Jr., historian 
and genealogist; Mr. Roswell B. Burchard, historian and antiquarian; 
Dr. Edward M. Harris; Mr. Frank E. Fitzsimmons; Rev. Edward 
Holyoke, D.D. ; and Misses Elizabeth U. Yates and Julia E. Smith. 

In the literary composition of several chapters, I have been assisted 
as follows : I'he chapter on "The Geology of Rhode Island" was written 
by Mr. H. S. Reynolds, of Providence, an expert geologist, and president 
of the Franklin Society. Hon. Jabez L. Mowry, State Forester, is the 
author of the chapter on "Rhode Island Forestry." Hon. Nathan W. 
Littlefield wrote the last half of the chapter on "The Judiciary." The 
"History of the Jews in Rhode Island" was contributed by Mrs. Caesar 
Misch. The "History of the Roman Catholic Church" was written by 
Rev. Thomas S. Cullan, of Providence. Rev. Gideon A. Burgess con- 
tributed the material on "Fruit and Granges." Dr. Arthur H. Harring- 
ton, Superintendent of State Hospital for Mental Diseases, has given an 
inside view of State Institutions at Howard. Mr. I. W. Patterson, Chief 
Engineer of Public Roads, contributes the article on "Roads and Road 
Building." The Bureau of Indian Nomenclature at Washington has aided 
in the spelling of Indian names. 

The first three volumes constitute the history proper, for which the 
author and his associates are absolutely responsible. The fourth volume 
of biographies is an essential factor in the finished work. That volume 
reveals the personal histories of the men who have made and are now 
making Rhode Island history. It reveals the important fact that all history 
is the life of a congeries of men and women engaged in the various 
occupations and professions that make up the sum total of a Common- 
wealth. To each generation, in its order, comes the contribution of all 
the past, and from that is evolved, as the acorn from the oak, the new 
order and type of civilization, of which each new creation is the expres- 
sion, true or modified of a fixed, but variously interpreted part. All basic 
principles of the old, such as soul liberty, civil liberty, democracy and 
their associates live, incarnate, in the new. "E'en in our ashes live our 
wonted fires." 

Rhode Island was early the asylum, the "City of Refuge," of great 
souls, with noble ideals. Their generations still live. Our great task is 
to carry up to a higher reality the dreams they dreamed, the visions they 
saw, the great purposes for which they wrought. Rhode Island principles 
and American patriotism, rightly understood and boldly maintained under 
wholesome laws, will save our beloved State and our greater Common- 
wealth of Federal States. Thomas W. Bicknell. 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Chapter I — The Narragansett Basin — Narragansett Bay 3 

Chapter II — Geology and Soil — Marine and Atmospheric Agen- 
cies — Classification of Soils — Minerals 13 

Chapter III — Farming and Forestry — Early Industries — Native 

Trees 37 

Chapter IV — Indian Tribes — Their Traits and Manner of Life. . . 61 

Chapter V— Civil and Religious Liberty — Coming of Roger Wil- 
liams — Land Purchases from Indians 85- 

Chapter \T — Early Settlers — Founders of Providence — William 

Blackstone — Departure of Roger Williams 103 

Chapter VII — Roger Williams in Narragansett Bay Colony — 

Salem and the Bay Colony— Trial of Williams— He is Exiled 123 

Chapter VIII — Providence, its Beginnings — Pioneer Settlers — 
Family Life — Creation of the Proprietary — Settlements at 
Moshassuck and Pawtuxet 143 

Chapter IX — Providence Early Land Allotments — The Town 

Laid Out — Early Settlers 171 

Chapter X — The Providence Proprietary — The Providence Com- 
pact—The Joshua Verin Case— The Anabaptists 189 

Chapter XI — Providence Town and Proprietary — Town Meet- 
ings — First Surveys 211 

Chapter XII— Government by Arbitration — The Town Fellow- 
ship — Roger Williams' Individualism 223 

Chapter XIII— Roger Williams and the Narragansetts— Canoni- 
cus and Miantonomi— The Sachems' Gift — Initial Deed of 
Roger Williams to the Associate Proprietors— The Pawtuxet 
Purchase 2^1; 

Chapter XIV — Boston the Preparatory School— Rights of Free- 
men — The Hutchinsons — Founding of New Town at Aquid- 
neck 2ei 

Chapter XV— Concerning Dr. John Clarke— Tributes to His 

Character and Worth 273 



viii HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

Page 

Chapter XVI — Founding of Portsmouth and Newport — A Demo- 
cratic State in the Making — ^The Supreme Court — Town 
Meetings — Laws Adopted for the Two Terms 287 

Chapter XVII — Founding of Colony of Rhode Island on Aquid- 
neck — The Portsmouth General Court — First Free School — 
Roger Williams Arrives with Charter of Incorporation for 
Providence Plantations — First Session of the General Assem- 
bly — Quakers Welcomed 311 

Chapter XVIII — Colony of Providence Plantations in Narragan- 
sett Bay^ — General Court of Election — The Coddington 
Regime — The First Four Towns — Gregory Dexter 325 

Chapter XIX — Providence and Aquidneck Contrasted — The 

Rhode Island Doctrine 35i 

Chapter XX — Settlement of Shawomet — Samuel Gorton — Sale of 
Shawomet Territory to Gorton and His Associates — Trial of 
Gorton and His Adherents — First Official Act of Town of 
Warwick 363 

Chapter XXI — The Pequot War — The Bay Expedition — Victory 
at Block Island — Issue of the War Determined by Influence 
and Acts of Roger Williams 387 

Chapter XXTI — The Williams Patent — Line of Separation Be- 
tween Aquidneck and Providence — Roger Williams Enters 
the Arena — The Charter of ifi63 W'ritten by Dr. John Clarke 
— The Plantations a Colony of the Crown 39/ 

Chapter XXIII — Roger Williams the Saviour of New England.. 415 

Chapter XXIV— The Royal Charter of 1663— Perfect Guarantee 
of Indian Titles — American Democracy Established — Letter 
of Dr. Clarke to Charles II — Dr. Clarke's Accomplishments. . 429 

Chapter XXV — King Philip's War — Raid on Swansea — Connec- 
ticut Furnishes Troops — The Great Swamp Fight — Death of 
Canonchet 443 

Chapter XXVI — The Narragansett Country — First Settlers — The 
Narragansett Purchase — The Atherton Company — The Nar- 
ragansett Planters — Social and Industrial Life — The Rhode 
Island Slave Code 467 

Chapter XXVII — Slavery in Rhode Island — Provisions Made by 
General Assemblv — Fortunes Amassed in the Slave Trade — 



CONTENTS ix 

Page 
Quakers Protest Against Slavery — General Assembly Pro- 
hibits Importation of Slaves 497 ' 

Chapter XXVIII — Block Island — Its History Opens with a 
Double Tragedy — End of Manisses Indians — Purchasers of 
the Island^Pioneer Settlers — The Palatine Light 515 

Chapter XXIX — Quakers in Rhode Island — They Establish 
Headquarters at Newport — George Fox Visits Newport — 
Roger Williams Attacks Quaker Teachings — Prominent Men 
Among the Sect — Quaker Governors — Case of Mary Dyer. . . 531 

Chapter XXX — The Huguenots — Prominent Families 357 

Chapter XXXI — Religious Societies — Dr. John Clarke an Expo- 
nent of Soul Liberty — The Salem Church — Rebaptism — 
Roger Williams as a Polemic — Baptist Church at Providence 
— Puritan Congregational Church at Newport—Separation of 
Religious Forces of Aquidneck — The Baptists — The Congre- 
gational Church — Protestant Episcopal Church — The Church 
of England — Methodist Episcopal Church — Other Denomina- 
tions — Roman Catholic Church — Concerning the Jews — Early 
Opinions as to the State of Religion in Rhode Island 565 

Chapter XXXII — General Assembly of Rhode Island — Organi- 
zation and Laws Enacted — Statehood — State House 641 •'^ 

Chapter XXXIII — Education — Early Schools — Bishop Berkeley 
Inaugurates the Golden Age of Education — Founding of 
Rhode Island College, now Brown University — Academies — 
The Public School System — School Commissioners — Board 
of Education — Vocational Schools 652 ^- 

Chapter XXXIV — The Struggle for Independence— Men Des- 
tined to Become Famous — The Great Revival of Religion a 
Factor — First Utterance of the War Cry of the Revolution : 
"No Taxation Without Representation" — Passage of the 
Stamp Act — Violent Demonstrations at Newport — Provi- 
dence Dedicates Its Liberty Tree — The "Gaspee" Case — Mili- 
tary Activity — Troops Enrolled — Rhode Island Takes the 
Lead in Events Leading to Independence — Privateering — 
Enrollment of Militia — Battle of Rhode Island — Distinguished 
Officers 6^7 

Chapter XXXV— Roads, Post Roads and Post Offices— Early 

Postmasters — The Stage Coach — Railroads — State Roads... 765 



X HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

Page 
Chapter XXXVI— The Dorr War— Dorr's Character— Universal 
Manhood Suffrage — Laws for Admission of Freemen — Dorr 
Contends for Extension of Suffrage — Freemen's Convention 
— The Dorr Assembly — Dorr as Governor — His Revolution- 
nrv Career — He Flees the State — His \'indication 781 

Chapter XXXVII— The Civil War— Rliode Island Troops Leave 
for the Seat of War — Regiments and Batteries in Service — 
General Burnside and War Governor Sprague — Distinguished 
Officers — Statues and Memorials 809 

Chapter XXXVIII — Manufactures — Water Power Utilized — 
Founders of Important Industries — Cotton Factories — Woolen 
Manufacture — Iron and Steel — Goldsmiths and Silversmiths 
— Providence Chamber of Commerce — Statistics 827 

Chapter XXXIX— Medicine and Surger> — Early Physicians— 
Their Methods — Epidemics — Surgical Operations — Early 
Medical Teachers and Schools of Medicine— Medical School 
of Brown University— Nineteenth Century Practitioners- 
Rhode Island Medical Society— State Hospital— Board of 
State Charities and Corrections — Administrative Boards.... 847 

Chapter XL— Finance and Banking— Early Bills of Credit— Lot- 
teries — First Banks— Tfesent Day Financial Institutions... 875 

Chapter XLI — Early Landmarks — Taverns — Dramatic Perform- 
ances — Historic Buildings 887 

Chapter XLII— Northwestern Rhode Island— Early Settlers- 
State Officials from the Region — Influence in Public Aft'airs — 
Modern Development 9H^ 

Chapter XLIII— The Judiciary— Establishment of First Courts 
— Pioneer Jurists— General Court of Elections— Code of 
Laws of 1647 — The General Assembly Exercises Judicial 
Powers in Criminal Cases— Counties Established— Separa- 
tion of Judicial and Legislative Departments— Notable Early 
Litigation— The Supreme Judicial Court— General Sessions 
of the Peace— Justices' Courts — Court of Common Pleas- 
Constitutional Amendments — Eminent Lawyers and Jurists. 935 

Chapter XLI V— Presidents and Governors 975 

Appendix— Town Histories — The Grange — Orchards — Place 

Names — Indian Place Names 1 175 



CHAPTER I 



THE NARRAGANSETT BASIN 



CHAPTER I. 
THE NARRAGANSETT BASIN. 

The Narragansett Basin is one of the most interesting historic as 
well as geologic sections of New England. Its total area lies between 
the Atlantic Ocean on the south and Wachusett on the north, and includes 
on the east the lands drained by the Taunton River, and on the west the 
lands sloping toward the Pawtucket River. This basin, irregular in shape, 
extends from north to south a distance of one hundred miles, and from 
east to west it has an average width of about forty miles. The State of 
Rhode Island occupies the seaward end of this territory, and is in length 
about fifty miles, in breadth about twenty-five miles, a total of about 1,300 
square miles. Longitude 71° 35' west cuts the State in halves. The lati- 
tude of Newport is 41° 30', and that of Providence is 41° 49' north. 

The principal streams that water and drain the Narragansett Basin, 
slopes and plains, are the Pawtucket or Blackstone, the Pawtuxet, the 
Taunton, the Moshassuck, the Woonasquatucket, Coles and Lees rivers, 
Palmers and Warren, Kickemuit, Runens and Barrington, Ten Mile River 
and Abbott's Run, all of which find their outlet in Narragansett Bay, 
where they mingle with the salt waters of the Atlantic. Wachusett, in 
Massachusetts, 2,108 feet above sea level, is the highest elevation, bound- 
ing the basin on the north, while Durfee Hill, in Gloucester, 805 feet high, 
Woonsocket Hill, in North Smithfield, 588 feet high, and Beacon Pole 
Hill, in Cumberland, 556 feet high, are the highest in Northern Rhode 
Island. As we descend from these rock-ribbed hills. towards the south 
and east, we at once strike the glacial detritus, bounded by moraines or 
covered with the soil accumulation of the post-glacial period. On our 
down-hill journey we encounCer water areas for ponds, held in their con- 
fines by rock precipices, over which the water plunges ten, twenty, fifty 
or more feet to the river grade below. The presence of these many ponds 
and waterfalls in Rhode Island points to a late or recent geologic trans- 
formation, previous to which the streams flowed over well-graded bot- 
toms. The Moshassuck Valley is an illustration of an old river bed 
having a slight decline and a sluggish flow of water, while the Blackstone 
from Lonsdale to tidewater has ponded areas, rapids, and at Pawtucket 
a noted waterfall. These ponds and waterfalls, in all parts of the State, 
have added interesting details to the contour of the country, while their 
concentrated water-motive power has created a vast per capita wealth 
in manufacturing businesses. 

The hill country of Rhode Island, our great forest land, constituting 
the northern and western areas, provides the reservoirs of our efficient 



4 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

streams. The alluvial valleys and plains, lying between the hills, partially 
cleared of forest growth by the Indians, directed and determined tlie 
pioneer settlers to these lands as their homes and to agriculture as their 
chief industry. 

The settlers at Providence. Portsmouth, Newport and Warwick were 
all farmers. Coddington, Clark, Brenton, Balston, Gorton, Greene, 
Holdcn, Harris, Carpenter and Williams, tilled the soil in early, rude ways 
for their livelihood, with the addition of fish-food from the shores and the 
sea. Roger Williams said of himself that he must be continually "at the 
hoe and oar for bread." 

Other hills in the northwest section of the State are: Wyunkeag 
Hill, in Smithfield, 557 feet; Jerimoth Hill, in Foster, 799 feet; Beacon 
Pole Hill, in Cumberland, 556 feet; Chopmist Hill, in Scitu^te, 625 feet; 
Bald Hill. 630 feet; Raccoon Hill, 601 feet; Escoheag Hill, 541 feet; 
Break-Heart Hill, 468 feet — the last four in West Greenwich ; Bowen 
Hill, in Coventry, 605 feet ; Pine Hill, Exeter, 543 feet ; Neutaconkanut 
Hill, Providence, 299 feet ; Beacon Hill, Providence, 200 feet, and Mount 
Hope, Bristol, 199 feet. \\'ithin the State there are more than eighty hills 
between 200 and 800 feet high. W'allum Pond, in the hill countrv" of 
Burrillville, is 575 feet above sea level, and Ponegansett Reservoir, in 
Gloucester, on the south slope of Durfee Hill, is 625 feet above the sea. 
The stream from the latter is tributary to the Pawtuxet River, which from 
its sources in Northwestern Rhode Island waters thousands of acres of 
upland, while its power turns thousands of mill wheels, and they, in turn, 
millions of wheels of looms and spindles in forty villages along that busy, 
industrious stream. 

It is possible and quite probable that prior to the last glacial period 
the Pawtuxet River flowed in a southerly course, entering the northwest 
corner of Greenwich Bay at Apponaug. The water-shed of the State 
begins at Woonsocket Hill, on the north, 588 feet high, extending south- 
erly to W\amkeag Hill, 557 feet high, skirting the east bank of Mos- 
wansicut Pond, over Bald Hill, in Scituate, 501 feet high, to River Point. 
Here the Pawtuxet, gathering its forces west and northwest has found a 
passage between hills 200 and 300 feet high, making for itself a new 
course northeasterly to Providence River, at Pawtuxet. 

The divide, south of River Point, follows a chain of hills on the divid- 
ing line of the towns of East and West Greenwich and Exeter and North 
Kingstown, tluence south by Sherman Hill, 293 feet high, Kingston Hill, 
252 feet, and Tefft's Hill, 255 feet, to Sugar Loaf Hill and the alluvial 
plains of South Kingstown on the shores of the Atlantic. 

The Pawtucket or Blackstone River Basin is the most important of 
the Narragansett Basin tributaries. In it we find the river, flowing some- 
what sluggishly through Worcester County, assuming immense power 



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THE NARRAGANSETT BASIN 5 

and creative force at Woonsocket Falls, Manville, Lonsdale, Valley Falls, 
Central Falls and Pawtucket Falls. There are twelve manufacturing 
centres on a river line of twelve miles, between and including Pawtucket 
and Blackstone. This immense concentration and utilization of power 
has few if any equals in the world, while the lands adjoining, watered 
by tributary brooks, are fertile and wealth-producing. The Blackstone 
Valley is famous as the starting point of the textile industries of the 
country, at Pawtucket Falls, where Samuel Slater and Moses Brown, in 
1790, set in operation the first cotton spinning and weaving in America. 
From that enterprise, Rhode Island has grown into one vast machine 
shop, wherein every type of industrial manufacture has been successfully 
carried on. 

Plate II is an interesting study of the old Pawtucket-Blackstone 
River. The Moshassuck River is reprresented by the numerals 5, 5, 10, 
II. This is the old bed of the Blackstone before the last glacial period. 
Figure i is at Scott's Pond. Above it a moraine was formed, stopping 
the flow of the stream at that point and compelling it to find a new 
bed to the sea. This it did by turning easterly at 3, then southerly to 2, 
then easterly to 7, thence southerly to join the Moshassuck and Woon- 
asquatucket at Fox Point, Providence. The fall from the level of Scott's 
Pond to tidewater is seventy- four feet. 

Ten Mile River is seen in Plate II marked by the figure 6. That 
stream probably, in preglacial days, flowed south into Runens and Har- 
rington River. The change of course may have been in later time. 

The Pawtuxet and the Pawcatuck valle3's are striking examples of 
the creative value of water power, guided by human skill and aided 
by human industry. 

While Rhode Island was an agricultural community, our farms were 
very slow producers of wealth. The great change in industries, wealth 
and in population came with the utilization of the water power of our 
numerous streams and waterfalls. The River Valley forces called for 
labor which in time became skilled labor, giving to employer and employed 
better and surer returns than the seeds and soils of the farm. 

But the great feature of the Narragansett Basin was and is Narra- 
gansett Bay, the great sunken river of the ocean, whose mean tides at 
Providence are about five and a half feet. This sea inlet and fresh- 
water outlet— the Bay— is twenty-five miles long and ten miles wide, 
at its greatest breadth, between Wickford and Tiverton. Its depth, near 
the Dumplings, at Newport, is 120 feet, equalling the deepest water of 
Delaware or Chesapeake Bays, and deeper than Buzzards Bay, Vineyard 
Sound and the harbors of New York, Boston, New London and Portland. 

The Narragansett Basin, thus outlined, has a northern and west- 
ern wall 805 feet high and a northeastern wall nearly 600 feet above the 



6 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

sea. Its greatest depth. 120 feet, added to the greatest height, 805 feet, 
gives 925 feet as the certain ahitude of the great glacier which fashioned 
this remarkable section of New England, while it is probable that its 
maximum height, at the period of its most efficient work, was many times 
that altitude. 

The ice-river which fashioned the contours of Rhode Island, flowed 
slowly over the nearly level floor of Southern Massachusetts till it reached 
the stubborn cliffs and the sharp declivity at Woonsocket Falls. From 
there to Providence, a distance of thirteen miles, the fall of over sixty 
feet per mile gave this semi-fluid stream a considerable velocity and an 
irresistible force down the Pawtucket and old Moshassuck River beds, 
on its way to the sea. It was the share of this enormous ice plough that 
fashioned the bed of Providence River, cut the channels that formed our 
island areas and made its deepest downward drive near the Dumplings, 
between Aquidneck and Conanicut islands. While cutting and dredging 
channels, this great earth mechanic wrought in planing mountains to 
hills : in smoothing rough, rocky ridges ; in grinding to finest clays, sands 
and gravels of the detached rocky cliffs, and in the distribution of this 
raw material from nature's grist-mill over the hard foundations of the 
valley basin it had excavated. The striated ledges and the giant boulders 
on our highest hills and ledges are picturesque and conclusive evidence 
of the glacial occupation of our territory and witness the values the ice- 
a^e conferred on our once ice-submerged State. 

This Narragansett glacier, as we will st}'le it, was confined to the 
old Pawtucket (now Blackstone) River bed by the high elevations of 
land in Woonsocket and Cumberland. To its operations we owe all of 
the present physical conditions of land and water west of the Island of 
Rhode Island. Sakonnet River and Mount Hojje Bay were fashioned 
by another glacial stream, which wrought out the Titicutt Valley and 
flowing southward into and through Mount Hope Bay, divided at the 
north end of Aquidneck, one stream joining the Rhode Island glacier at 
Bristol Fern,-, and one flowing to the ocean through the Sakonnet channel. 

It is probable that the land area of Rhode Island, as well as that of 
Southern Massachusetts and Connecticut, extended many miles south of 
the present ocean bounds. Geologists tell us that the land at Boston was 
at least forty miles from the sea at the close of the last glacial period. 
The same was undoubtedly true of Rhode Island, and, probably, of all 
Southern New England. Block Island, how twenty-four miles from 
Newport, was a part of the mainland. That island was a vast deposit of 
clay, which has bravely withstood the age warfare of the ocean, as has 
Gay Head, a corresponding clay cliff in the ocean waters of Southern 
Massachusetts. In proof that Block Island had its origin in the last 
glacial period, the author has a piece of solid oak wood, cut from an 



THE NARRAGANSETT BASIN 7 

oak log found one hundred feet in deptli by the drill of an artesian well 
operator at the harbor on that island. At the present time the tide-water 
line of Rhode Island is 400 miles long. 

Professor Arnold Guyot, after a careful study of the contour of 
the Narragansett Basin, wrote : "This territory is strongly marked. It is 
fitted to be the abode of active, hardy and vigorous men." He saw m 
our hills, valleys, streams and waterfalls the exhaustless forces that would 
create and sustain our varied manufactures; in our climate and soils the 
rewarding fruits of intelligent tillage; in our open-harbor tidal waters, 
uniting in one great arters^ to the ocean th« streams of agricultural and 
manufacturing industries, the opportunities and wealth of commercial 
enterprises. 

Xarraganeefct Bay extends from Bullock's Point on the north to its 
double mouths at the south-east and south-west points of Conanicut Island. 
Four-fifths of the land area of the State lies on the west shore of the Bay. 
Having the Atlantic Ocean at our front door, with the warm waters of 
the Gulf Stream a hundred miles away, our climate is warmer than else- 
where in New England, while our flora includes the English ivy and the 
rhododendron, which withstand our severest cold. In many places the 
latter grows spontaneously to the height of twenty feet. Owing to a 
delightful climate and rich soil, the Island of Rhode Island has been 
styled "The Garden of America," and Captain Myles Standish declared 
that Sowams (Barrington) was "The Garden of the Plymouth Patent 
and the flower of the Garden." In 1665 Colonel Richard Nichols, Eng- 
lish Governor of New York, in a report to King Charles, wrote: "The 
Nanhygansett Bay is the largest and safest port in New England, nearest 
the sea and fittest for trade. In this Province, also, is the best English 
grasse, and most sheep. The ground very fruitful, ewes bring ordinarily 
two lambs. Corn yields eighty for one, and in some places they have 
had come twenty-sixe yeares together without manuring." 

In 1690 some person, name now unknown, wrote as follows: "Ro.\d 
Island is of cons.iderable bignesis, aaid justly called the Garden of Ncm 
England for its Fertility and Pleasantness. It abounds with all things 
necessary for the life of Man, is excellent for Sheep, Kine and Horses; 
and being environed by the Sea, it is freed from the dangers of Bears, 
Wolves and Foxes, which much molest and damnific those that live on 
the Continent." This reference is to Aquidneck, the largest of the ten 
principal islands in Narragansett Bay. 

It is evident that this great inland water basin, receiving, for twenty- 
five miles in length, the income and outflow of the ocean tides, has proved 
of immense advantage to the territory and peoples in its proximity. The 
first and greatest value of a deep and wide waterway is its relation to trade- 
and commerce. 



8 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

The Narragansett Basin has a depth of thirty feet at Providence 
Harbor, thereby furnishing a terminal for national and foreign trade. 
Harbors of less depth of water are found at Pawtucket, East Providence, 
Pawtuxet, Barrington, Warren, Bristol, Warwick, East Greenwich, Wick- 
ford, Portsmouth and Newport, and the islands in the great basin. Ports- 
mouth and Newport were the first Rhode Island towns to engage in 
shipbuilding earlier than 1646, and in domestic trade by water, while 
Providence discouraged commerce by forbidding the cutting of timber 
except for houses and fuel. Dutch vessels from Manhattan were the 
first carriers of goods to the trading houses on the Bay. Dutch Island, 
in the west passage, gets its name from a trading post established there 
by the Dutch West India Company in 1625. It is a matter of great regret 
in modern days that the early settlers of Rhode Island, and more espec- 
ially those at Providence, did not see and utilize the Narragansett Basin 
in building up the northern part of the State. In fact, such danger seemed 
to attend Bay navigation that on the departure of the Deputies of Prov- 
idence, in 1647, to meet in the General Assembly at Portsmouth, a parting 
word was spoken : "Desiring the Lord's Providence for your safe arrival 
there * * * we commit you unto the protection and direction of the 
Almighty, wishing you a comfortable voyage, a happy success and a safe 
return unto us again." So great were the perils of a canoe voyage with 
paddles from Providence to Portsmouth, a distance of fifteen miles! 

This basin was the home of tlie food-fish of the people, and continues 
its supplies for home and distant consumption. The fin and shell fisher- 
ies have supported multitudes of our own people, while the Boston, New 
York and more distant markets depend largely upon the fish-foods of our 
Narragansett Basin. 

Dr. Francis Wayland, the great president of Brown University, while 
deeply appreciating the physical and economic values of the Narragansett 
Basin, saw intellectual values in our singularly interesting geologic struc- 
ture. In a public address at Providence, he once said : "Without dis- 
paraging the classics, I commend to my fellow-citizens the study of their 
own geography and history. Though Rhode Island is the smallest State 
in the L'nion, she is larger than ancient Attica and may yet act a part 
alike illustrious and honorable. She is as favorably situated for great 
achievements as was the Athenian Republic. She has vast resources of 
power, as yet undevelojied. arising from her unique physical structure, 
and her fortunate location in Southern New England, midway between 
the great commercial centres of Boston and New York. Nature has done 
her part in the structure of a republic, in miniature, wherein agriculture, 
manufactures, commerce, education and religion may have opportunities 
for fullest development. Its smallness may be made the occasion of its 
true greatness. Her granites may serve as good a purpose as Pentelic 



THE NARRAGANSETT BASIN 9 

or Parian marble. Here is ample room for schools of learning, science 
and art, where educated skill shall make industry creative and its methods 
profoundly ethical. The aboriginal names of our bays, streams, ponds, 
hills, groves, aire well worth preserving as linking us with a dim but real 
historic past, as do the mythologic names that cling to the nomenclature 
of Eg>-pt, Assyria, Greece and Rome." 

It is easily seen that Rhode Island owes its existence as a Common- 
wealth, the smallest in the group of States, to the Narragansett Basin 
around and to whicli its towns are clustered. Geography, soil, climate, 
wind and water power, and all the forms of nature have been tributary 
to the making of a civilization, peculiar, distinguished, incident to the 
physiological structure of our territory. It was not an accident of history 
that two of the most interesting Indian tribes in America made their 
homes in this basin. Neither was it an accident that free institutions 
should first find full expression here. Individualism also grew out of 
several relations. "Lands separated by a narrow frith abhor each other." 
Each separate community within its own bounds of water or hill slope had 
its own centralized idealism, its own reason for existence. The town was 
a tribal expression, and the men of the twentieth century still carry the 
tribal instincts, traditions- and mould of tribal life of the seventeenth. Wil- 
liams at Providence, Field at Mashapaug. Harris at Pawtuxet, Gorton 
at Warwick, Smith at Narragansett, Coddington and Clarke at Newport, 
were types and representatives of distinct historic character and develop- 
ment brought into full expression in a territory where each man, un- 
challenged or challenged, wrought out his problem in hiis own peculiar 
way. The Narragansett ESasin was created for such an end and to the 
introduction and procedure of the human drama, the solution of the 
white man's problem of democracy, the future chapters of this history 
are devoted. 



CHAPTER II 



RHODE ISLAND GEOLOGY AND SOIL 



CHAPTER II. 
RHODE ISLAND GEOLOGY AND SOIL. 

(By HENRY S. REYNOLDS, Ph. D. ) 

Certainly no book of modern date, dealing with historical records 
of mankind, would be complete without the close relationship being noted 
between the people and the soil which they inhabit, and which for gen- 
erations they have occupied. 

The land has much to do in making its inhabitants ; the one is fitted 
to the other as truly as two hemispheres making one complete sphere. 
It was recorded a long time ago of a certain land that "it eateth up its 
inhabitants," but the true interpretation comes out in the narrative that 
the land produced mighty men who were of giant mould. We first follow 
out the topographical features of a country and note whether it be a 
plain or a rugged outline, whether luxuriant with a growth of vegetation 
or inhospitable to forms of life, whether well supplied with moisture or 
of desert dreariness. Either of these suggested extremes stamps its 
human life indelibly. 

All the great civilizations of history began in fertile river valleys. 
Egypt occupied the granary of the world ; Babylon and Assyrian civiliza- 
tion sprang forth in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates — the Meso- 
potamian fertility that moved the world with envy. The Hindus on the 
banks of the Ganges and the Indus, the Chinese on the Yang-tse-kiang 
and Hoang-ho, are sufficient examples of the rivers' influence in govern- 
ing the development of civilization. In later times, the Tiber and the Po 
nurtured the germs of great civilizations or of mind. 

In the settlement of our own shores, the river outlets were largely 
the choice spots which invited the first settlers and from which points 
the newcomers turned their footsteps into the wilderness for homes and 
wealth and final national fame. 

The navigable inland waters open up natural features of a country, 
its timber growths, its furs and flesh of animal life, its mineral resources, 
and, last, but not least, its soils for cultivation, and the production of 
crops at the hand of the skilled husbandman to supply food for coming 
millions of the race for advancing generations. The historian, viewing 
these facts, sees the true result in, not alone a robust, well fed industrial 
population of creatures, but also, the social uplift, the constant evolution 
of the race from the mere vital, to the more ethical plane of being. The 
earth for man and man for liis fcllozv-man — this is the high note to be 
reached in human culture as revealed by artistic touch or historian's pen. 



14 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

No text could better represent the spirit of our present chapter in Rhode 
Island history than the sentiment we have just voiced in the human 
problem. 

There is also an industrial prelude that has a bearing on Geology as 
a factor in the development of a commonwealth like our state. 

When men decide to engage in the production of a certain line of 
goods, they select a suitable place to erect their manufacturing plant, 
where an abundance of necessary material is at hand, also power to run 
the same, and where skilled workers may be secured for their enterprise. 
In other words, no one can produce a result without first investing in an 
adequate stock of necessary preparatory supplies. 

When the architect of the Universe began His creative task of ex- 
pressing Hii mind in terms of matter, crowning His dynamic action with 
man, a combination of soul and animal structure, He made adequate use 
of resources, and conservation of law, that would eventually restore to 
Himself all that was necessarily involved in the enterprise, plus what He 
purposed to produce — a perfect man under perfect surroundings, and 
endowed with creative faculties, similar to His Own Mind — filled, also, 
to the fullest degree with Divine attributes, goodness, love, joy, peace, etc. 

With some such thoughts filling their minds, we can see the early 
pilgrims facing the perils of the deep, saddened by the separation from 
old country ties, yet bravely taking up life on this side of the ocean upon 
a bit of land which they truly saw was to be the theater upon which 
was to be played anew the drama — tragedy of man's exaltation, under 
more modern environments, and with new natural gifts; beauties of 
plants, animals, mineral wealth, and best of all, "freedom to worship 
God" without set forms, ceremonies, regal or ecclesiastical. The sun, 
moon and stars were as independent in aspect of one another as those 
modern argonauts who landed on our New England shore. Their feet 
pressed upon tlie rocks of the new country, typical of the New Earth, 
and its blessings of "soul-liberty." 

In this brief review we then recognize in man, certain basic laws of 
life, more precious than home comforts, more satisfying than wealth, 
more eagerly sought after than regal pomp. All that we may present in 
these few pages of Rhode Island geology and her productive soil and 
industrial natural wealth, is to be transmuted into sturdy Christian effort, 
an optimism that will change the foreign' fugitive from oppression and 
illiteracy into red-blooded freemen, true sons of Rhode Island. 

The history of a country made up of the union of separate entities 
like our United States, boimd together by a constitution and with con- 
federation of interests which cannot be cut apart by state lines, such a 
land may be well represented by one of its parts being chosen, even a 



GEOLOGY AND SOIL 15 

very small part, like our own state, by which to demonstrate the geologic 
wealth and philosophy of each and all of the states. 

The Norse men are said to have explored our New England coast 
and to have given the name of Vineland to it, on account of its luxuriant 
growth of vine, the grape, and one of our indentations is known as Vine- 
yard Sound. Norumbega Tower, near Newtonville, Massachusetts, is 
one of the fabled camps of these hardy explorers. On the rocks at Mt. 
Hope and at Dighton, Massachusetts, near by, are certain weird char- 
acters displayed at low tide. We can only remark that if these marks 
were made by those early voyagers, the shore line has not changed mate- 
rially since that early date. 

We may readily distribute our topics in this chapter under the fol- 
lowing general heads : 

Rhode Isl.xnd St.vte Geology. 

(I) A short history of geological explorations and published 

literature. 
(II) General geologic structure of Narragansett Bay, and state 
geologic problems. 

(III) Marine and atmospheric agencies, destructive and construc- 

tive. 

(IV) Distribution of rocks, Archean, Sedimentary, Later Vol- 

canics. 
(V) Physical characters of soil ; origin, culture, etc. 

I. Dr. Charles T. Jackson, in January, 1839, was appointed by the 
state legislature to make a Geological and Agricultural Survey of the 
state, and the following year, 1S40, was presented his report which in- 
cluded a geological map of the state and a section chart across the state 
from west to east. Previous to this report, certain short articles bearing 
on the mineral resources of the state had appeared in various publica- 
tions devoted to scientific matters. Certain general maps and mineral- 
ogies had referred to some geological features extending from other 
states into Rhode Island. Forty-seven years elapsed before the next 
Rhode Island report was issued by Providence Franklin Society. Dr. 
David W. Hoyt, principal of the English High School, of Providence, in 
1887, wrote his pamphlet of 130 pages on Geology of Rhode Island, which 
was published by the Franklin Society. His subjects were arranged 
'under seven heads: 

Index of publications bearing upon the geology and mineralogy of 
Rhode Island. 

Catalogue of rocks and minerals collected by Dr. Jackson's Survey. 
Catalogue of fossils found in Rhode Island. 
Catalogue of minerals found in Rhode Island. 



i6 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

List of localities in Rhode Island of interest to geologists and miner- 
alogists. 

Results of diggings. 

Three plates of fossils accompany the publication, but no maps. The 
town of Cumberland is called the "Alineral Pocket of New England." 

In 1899 was published the L^nited States Geological Monograph 
XXXIII, on the Geolog)' of Xarragansett Basin, the joint work of Pro- 
fessor N^. S. Shaler and J. B. \\'oodworth and A. F. Foerste. This work 
was well illustrated with photographic plates and maps. It contains 402 
pages and two geologic maps, one of the north and one of the south sec- 
tions of the carboniferous system of the state. 

Part 1. General geolog}% is by Prof. X. S. Shaler ; four chapters. 
Part II. The northern and eastern portion of the basins, by J. B. 

\\'oodworth ; six chapters. 
Part III. The carboniferous strata of southwest basin, A. F. 

Foerste ; twelve chapters. 

In 1889 the American Journal of Science (Third Series), volume 
XXXVII, page 411, reported an insect fossil found in the Pawtucket 
shales and described by Prof. A. S. Packard, of Brown University. In 
tine Bulletin of United States Geological Survey, No. loi, of 1893, 
with 27 pages and two plates. Dr. S. H. Scudder described and figured a 
small insect fauna collected by many observers in the shales about the 
head of Narragansett Bay. A list of these is given, pages 202-203, of 
the before-given monograph of Prof. Shaler, etc., headed, "Insect Fauna 
of Rhode Island Coal Fields." 

In 1905 was published "Taconic Physiography" Bulletin, 272, of 
United States Geologic Survey, the work of T. Nelson Page. It is here 
held tliat the only series of rocks of sedimentary origin lying upon the 
crystalline quartz and gneisses on the western border of the State of 
Rhode Island and below the Cambrian and Carboniferous beds, belongs 
to this series, "Taconic." This pamphlet of 52 pages is accompanied by 
a geologic map and numerous photographs of the Taconic region of 
western Massachusetts and of the Green Mountains, but no stated local- 
ities of this series is listed within Rhode Island. In 1907 was published, 
"The Green Schists and Associated Granites and Porphyries of Rhode 
Island," as the L^nited States Geological Bulletin, No. 311, by Benj. K. 
Emerson and Joseph H. Perry. This report consists of 74 pages. It 
intimately relates certain rocks of Rhode Island with the above-mentioned 
Taconic series, so both pamphlets should be considered as of one mind. 
A map is given, showing the state boundary line between Rhode Island 
and Connecticut as being well paralled by these Taconics lying along tliis 



GEOLOGY AND SOIL 17 

height of land bordering the two states ; while with Massachusetts on 
the north of both we have a triangle of states of geologic harmony and 
of economic, mineralogical interest. This region of crystallines, and 
devoid of fossils has proved a hard nut to crack. The American Geol- 
ogical Society Bulletin, volume XXV (1914), pages 455-476, published 
"Geology of the Diamond Hill Cumberland District in Rhode Island and 
Massachusetts," by C. H. Warner and S. Power. In this is described 
and mapped in detail th-e rocks of the Blackstone Valley in Rhode Island 
and the region just north. The writers regard the metamorphic strata as 
pre-Cambrian, therefore Archean. The lower beds are described as the 
Cumberland quartzite, the equivalent of the Westboro quartzite, and the 
upper green schists including the Smithfield limestone as the Ashton 
schists, the equivalent of the Marlboro formation. 

"Geology of Massachusetts and Rhode Island," LTnited States Geo- 
logical Survey Bulletin, No. 597, by B. K. Emerson, which contains 289 
pages : the map accompanying this report includes the two states, Massa- 
chusetts and Rhode Island. Here we can plainly see how our little state 
shares her geologic plums with the state that embraces her on the north 

and east borders as she does with Connecticut on the west. 

******* 

II. SuRF.\CE Structure of Narr.agan.sett Basin and General 
Geologic Problem.s. — It is now well understood by geologists that North 
America has been more or less flooded by the ocean at least fifteen times 
since the opening of the Proterozoic Era, and the continents have been 
similarly submerged below the sea level. We may assume that the faunas 
and floras have changed as many times to fit these influxes of the ocean, 
bearing life-forms, especially the plankton microscopic life of the sea. 
Layers of fossils in the sedimentary rocks where they occur, amply testify 
by their changed forms, changes of environments — ^they become veritable 
"time-markers." The area of North America embraces 7,600,000 square 
miles today, and in past times extended farther eastward over sea-shelves, 
making approximately 8,300.000 square miles. Our state is but a minute 
fraction of the continent — 1306 square miles, and of this, one-tenth is 
covered by Narragansiett Bay. These fifteen geologic floods began and 
ended with continental shelf-movement, which included from one to 
five per cent, of the area of this continent, and in the case of our state this 
oceanic overlap has preserved few fossils, in the marine strata. The 
carboniferous formation of stratified rocks being mainly fresh or brack- 
ish water deposits are more fortunate in its fossil preserves, certain inter- 
esting insect remains and plant impressions, found in rocks within our 
borders have given us some attention in geologic circles. 

It is well for us to bear in mind that our state, as a part of the 
continental area stood up out of the ocean for much longer periods of 

R 1-2 



i8 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

time than when the deposits were being laid down on the ocean bottom — 
in short, the "intervals" between the periods of ocean floods in our own 
state were clearly marked by the fresh water coal series of beds. The 
prefix cpi or cp added to the era time-name is the name of the succeeding 
uplift — space of time when the land stood above the ocean; thus, ep- 
Archean, ep-Silurian, ep-Algonian, signify the uplift of land following 
these sedimentary deposit periods, Archean, Silurian, etc. ; the marine 
periods being named directly for their marine fossils. The nomenclature 
of geology a century ago was not the same as at present carried out. 
Then the names of "Old Red Sandstone," "New Red Sandstone," the 
"Culm" were known. "Anthracite" came from, crushed in the mountain 
making. Oolite, for the present Jurassic, and chalk, have now the name 
Cretaceous. The period names were usually taken from the geographic 
area where the system of rocks were first considered to be of period 
value; so the names came Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian and Devonian, 
being the common people-names living in England and Wales. Missis- 
sippian, from the valley where the rocks of the carboniferous in this 
country were first found in full force, and Blackstone of the Narragansett 
Bay series. The Triassic was an heirloom from Germany. The Ordo- 
vician period in North America was closed by the Taconic disturbance 
in western Massachusetts and eastern New York when low mountains 
appeared along our present New England country from Newfoundand 

to Virginia. 

******* 

III. Marixe and Atmospheric x\gencies. — At least five cold 
periods in the history of the earth have been identified which took place 
in the Epi intervals when the continents stood above the ocean. It is 
conceivable that climates have repeatedly fluctuated between warm and 
moist, and cool and arid. The plants and animals of the rocks give evi- 
dence upon which to base this belief while marine life was more pro- 
tected from these temperature vicissitudes. "Plankton" was a term that 
Haeckel proposed for forms of floating life of the seas, pelagic life in 
general, largely algae, foraminiferae and radiolaria, together with larvae 
of higher animals constituting food for fishes and the like. The abun- 
dance and richness in species of these microscopic forms rival those of 
forest life, and show the importance of minute protected life. These 
have been figuratively spoken of as the "Pastures of the seas" for the 
animal life of the ocean bottoms. These are collectively known as "ben- 
thos." These low forms of life take in carbonic acid and free oxygen 
supplying favorable conditions for higher animals, especially in temperate 
waters. Nearly all abyssal invertebrates are phosphorescent, able to 
transform the darkest depths into a magic garden. Deposits of the sea 
bottoms form largely the limestones and dolomites such as we find at the 



GEOLOGY AND SOIL 19 

lime quarries of Lincoln in our state, and other scattered deposits about 
our crystalline western Rhode Island. The fossil origin is not shown, 
because of metamorphism through proximity to igneous injections. A 
process of alteration has also in some cases taken place contemporaneously 
with accumulation which has concealed the fossil origin which takes place 
on the ocean bottom through chemical changes in warm waters. 

^ ^> -t^ ^S ^i^ ^ ^ 

IV. Rhode Island Series of Geologic Strata, and Their Dis- 
tribution. — We recognize now six eras in the geologic series where 
three formerly sufficed. Dr. Jackson in 1840 noted three eras, namely: 
Primary, Secondary and Tertiary. Later, a fourth was added, the Quar- 
ternary. Our present six are : Archeozoic, Proterozoic, Paleozoic, Meso- 
zoic, Cenozoic, Psychozoic. Not the whole series of these are discover- 
able within our state limits, but a few of the representative formations 
of these are present for our study. For comparison with our rocks we 
will give a clearly marked, well identified locality outside of our own 
borders in each case before we present our own for observation. First : 
The so-called "Shield" of Canada, the oldest exposed rock ; the Lauren- 
tian Mountains within its confines is not well understood in its details. 
It represents a long, long elapse of time and contains in some of its area 
the dawn of life. Much of its rugged strata give no signs that the 
geologist can translate into terms of life. Theoretically, there must be 
rocks that have never known life. Acoic was the expressive term used 
for such, but they have been pushed down, out of sight until we 
can doubt if any eye has ever seen the truly primitive azoic nucleus of 
our earth. Archean was the next term applied to this unknown, mis- 
understood old formation, having in its breast, sedimentary strata as well 
as purely crystalline rocks. Now, the term Archeozoic conveys the idea 
of dawn of life, and we have such rocks in our own state on our western 
border uplift. As we tramp up hill and down through the western high- 
land border of our state, we divide our upturned ridges and dales into 
three classes of rocks : Those having more or less igneous appearance, 
masses of schists and gneisses, and here and there, more clearly marked 
stratified sedimentary members. 

Injected granites form the heart's core in many cases, of porphyries, 
gneiss, green rocks, while trap-like outcrops help out the rocky bastion- 
like collection of western Rhode Island, Connecticut and Massachusetts. 
These states, with others, present an illustrative area of strata from New- 
foundland to Alabama, of a folded mountain section, very ancient and 
greatly denuded by long weathering. This mass was thrust up, com- 
pressed against the Adirondacks. The thrust seems to have operated 
from the east direction. Erosion, long extended, has caused this vast 
wrinkled pile of strata everywhere to wear down from sharp outHnes 



20 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

to a low plateau showing its mountainous structure, minus its mountain 
masses : Steep, dipping, and truncated outlines, where huge arches of 
strata had formerly reared their folds between the deep concave down- 
thrusts. The characteristic mountain in southern New Hampshire has 
loaned its name to this kind of mountain structure — "Monadnock," while 
Wachusett, Grace, Brush and Asnelumskit, are neighboring native signal 
towers. 

Our Rhode Island and Connecticut area extends in its Monadnock 
structure northward to Essex County, Massachusetts. These weathered 
bed-rocks of our western highlands, form the western rim of the more 
level section of carboniferous strata which make up the substratum of 
our soils over most of our state, and where our rivers flow cutting their 
beds out on their journey to Narragansett Bay, to the sea. 

Let us now take up in short detail, the separate sections of our state 
and show its bed rock foundations. We have dwelt upon the western 
rim-rock so largely made up of crystallines. Intervening in a narrow, 
devious north and south line between the granites and gneisses on the 
west and the carboniferous of the center and the east, is discovered, here 
and there, in isolated localities, rocks which have been called Cambrian, 
the period name of sedimentary, fossil bearing marine strata which in 
Connecticut, Massachusetts and elsewhere are superimposed on the be- 
fore-mentioned crystalline rocks. The Cambrian beds are the lowest, 
first well recognized fossil bearing rock of our New England geologic 
section ; the North Attleboro red limestone bearing well recognized fossils 
at the base of the carboniferous series in the neighborhood of Hoppin 
Hill, near North Attleboro. All the sections of our Archeozoic crystalline 
rocks show a uniform, steep dip to the east. The green schists copper 
bearing, which border our granite area on the east in certain locations, 
seem to occur in two flanking bands with the Albion Quartzite; an ap- 
parently overturned anticlinal occurs through Cranston in a broken line 
northward through the northern section of the state into Massachusetts. 
The green schists are, likely, the younger of the two. At the north of 
Albion, the newer portion of the green schists is seen, since the pebbles 
in the green schist are of quartzite like that of the central quartzite. At 
Manton, near Providence, the quartzite anticline, flanked by green schists 
probably is included in the Mil ford granite, a so-called passage bed be- 
tween the Grafton quartzite and the Marlboro formation. 

Let us note that the Grafton Quartzite above is the later nomencla- 
ture for Cumberland quartzite and that Westboro quartzite is a still later 
proposed name by D. K. Emerson, 1917, for this lower member of the 
Blackstone series, of Rhode Island, and that the higher member is the 
Marlboro formation of schists, notably, the Smitbfield limestone. The 
other rocks of the series being biotite schist, hornblende schist, epidote- 



GEOLOGY AND SOIL 21 

chlorite schist, actinoHte quartzite, and steatite, with inckided beds of 
quartzite ( D. K. Emerson) and limestones, for the chief part, of sedi- 
mentary origin. 

The Smithfield limestone contains minerals of value while the lime 
is of economic importance. The schists above enumerated were, by 
former writers, called Ashton schists. Lincoln, Rhode Island, one mile 
west of Lonsdale, Rhode Island, has the main body of these interesting 
limestone outcroppings. Cumberland, Cranston and Newport are other 
points where outcroppings occur. The "hornblende rock" of Dr. Jack- 
son's report, 1840, is now recognized as partly of igneous origin and part 
to this Marlboro formation both sedimentary and metamorphic. Copper- 
mine Hill, Cumberland, Rhode Island, near Sneech Pond is referred to 
this Marlboro Formation. A word may be added as to this lime industry 
of the "Harris" and "Dexter" quarries. The magnesian lime of Rhode 
Island has always ranked high in the estimation of masons, but is unfit 
for agi'iculture, and care should be taken to use only soft rock for that 
purpose, free from magnesia (Dr. Jackson). The beds at these above- 
mentioned quarries vary from massive sacharoidal marbles, fine grained, 
to products laminated, shearing structures; bearing chlorite, asbestos, 
mountain leather and talc upon the gliding planes, the limestones under 
pressure flowed into all the interstices and now shows no trace of the 
separation (Wood worth). The formation as a whole, comprises biotite 
schist, hornblende schist, spidote, chlorite schist, actinolite, quartzite and 
steatite, all for the most part of sedimentary origin. 

******* 

Leaving this interesting Cambrian remnant lying in friendly arms of 
its protecting elder brother Archeozoic, we find no well attested beds of 
the Ordovician, Silurian, or Devonian periods of geologic deposition 
within our state, but we come immediately on leaving the Cambrian upon 
the Narragansett Carboniferous Basin extending eastward into Massa- 
chusetts. This Paleozoic outcropping is termed the Narragansett Series, 
and is of late Carboniferous or Permian time. Thus we see that the 
various earlier members of Carboniferous Mississippian period and earlier 
Pennsylvanian are missing from our geologic section. 

Because the Carboniferous series are so largely of continental or 
fresh water deposits, the coal areas are of circumscribed, basin-like char- 
acter, for we recognize four well marked coal areas or basins within our 
New England territory. 

First, or nearest to the Adirondack backbone we have the Worcester 
Basin, extending brokenly from Connecticut to New Hampshire. Second, 
the Narragansett Basin. Third, the Boston, and nearly related Merri- 
mack Bed, extending into New Hampshire and Maine. Fourth, one, and 



22 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

perhaps more basins along the coast of Maine ; lastly the well marked coal 
area of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. 

Thus we recognize that the coal formations are separated areas and 
not an extended, continuous formation like the marine sedimentations. 
The Narragansett Basin covxrs eastern Rhode Island with carboniferous 
sediments, with here and there a bed of graphitic coal. Fossil plants 
usually are found in conjunction with the coal seams. We speak of coal 
scams, for the beds are now found in an upturned position. With the 
folded beds in this formation we also find intruded granites and felsites. 

Rhode Isl.\nd of the Pennsylvani.\n Time. — The smallest coal 
basin is in the smallest state; 500 square miles comprises our basin area — 
a portion of this lies across the line in Massachusetts. The strata strike 
is north and south, a thickness of about 12,000 feet. These beds, in places, 
lie on rocks of Cambrian age where these have not been eroded during 
the long time of continental emergence extending from the Cambrian to 
Carboniferous. 

If we begin our study of North American carbon on the east coast 
of our country we would number the first coal field as Acadian to which 
our own coal belongs. Second is the Appalachian ; Third, Michigan ; 
Fourth, eastern Indiana ; Fifth, western Indiana and Illinois ; Sixth, Ozark 
and Oklahoma. The Texas and western coals are of another class and 
do not need to be itemized here. 

Where anthracite coal occurs, invariably is found the strata of rocks 
more or less folded and broken, so the term anthracite brings to our 
minds a crushed or broken environment. When the strata are much de- 
formed the coals pass through a more complete metamorphosis and be- 
come graphitic, as our coal in Rhode Island. A continuous shale bed, 
covering the coal, shuts in the accumulating gas and petroleum, seals it 
so it has the true form to become and remain in the bituminous or soft 
coal condition. The Narragansett coal basin has been the field of much 
careful study by N. S. Shaler, J. B. Woodworth and A. F. Foerste in their 
monograph previously referred to in this chapter. Later along we have 
B. K. Emerson, who has made additions to our knowledge of the state 
formations. 

Our carboniferous area is readily separable into a northern and 
southern sectional study. The north field groups are: Westville shales 
and Seekonk sandstone, Ten-mile River beds ; Mansfield beds, Cranston 
beds and Sockanossett sandstones, Pawtucket shales ; basal-beds of arkose. 
Southern field groups are : Purgatory Conglomerate, Kingston Series of 
Dr. Foerste, Equidneck shales by Dr. Foerste ; basal beds of arkose. The 
floral fossils consist of Pennsylvania age forms ; the faunal fossils con- 
sist of ostracodes and insects. The coal beds are much broken or crushed 
and vdth much material of a foreign nature infiltrated from time to time 



GEOLOGY AND SOIL 23 

as the marsh lands were overflowed or the water drained off as the sur- 
face became raised. As a fuel, the coal is of Httle use since it must be 

pulverized and mixed with inflammable pitch or tar into briquettes. 

******* 

So far as sedimentary rocky strata are concerned for Rhode Island 
we are at the end of our list but we must believe that out of sight we 
may have other fragmental strata rocks. The Triassic System comes into 
New England in our western neighbor, Connecticut, at New Haven and 
northward casts a band following the Connecticut Valley through Massa- 
chusetts, in places, twenty miles wide. The trap-out-floe which is such 
a marker for this period at New Haven, is recognized in "East" and 
'"West" rock and a picturesqueness is given to the scenery along the 
Connecticut river valley as we go north to the state of Vermont. Such 
land-marks only have to be mentioned as Mt. Tom, Mt. Holyoke, Mt. 
Toby, Titan's Pier, etc. The Triassic sandstone often called Connecticut 
sandstone was, by the former nomenclature called the New Red Sand- 
stone, lying above the Carboniferous rocks, as the Old Red Sandstone 
laid below the coal beds of England. These Triassic rocks of Connecticut 
and Massachusetts have been the happy hunting grounds for track pil- 
grims these many years, for here in. the "brownstone" quarries were dis- 
covered "bird-tracks" as they were called at first, and later made out to 
be by reptiles of lizard-like bodies but bipedal in their walk. The organic 
and climatic conditions indicate a semi-arid dryness for the extensive 
sand plains along the valley estuary in the Triassic days of animal travel 
and sand-walking. From Nova Scotia to the Carolinas the Trias appears 
in coastal spots, and we can readily imagine some part of our coast as 
being in trim for this period of coastal exploitation, but it may be under 
the stretch of a later deluge and later sediments. 

Block Island is composed of transported granitic material similar 
to the glacial moraines of the Kingston mainland. No bed rock is in dis- 
coverable position on the island, and this drift soil lies on the Tertiary 
clays shown in the cliffs seventy to one hundred feet high on the south- 
west end of the island. This blue clay is destitute of marine shells, and 
is interstratified with beds of bog iron ore, mixed with pebbles to a 
thickness of three to seven feet. The strata slope northwest at twenty 
degrees pitch. Huge fragments of granitic rocks, both waterworn and 
angular are scattered on the shore line of cliffs. Paving stones by the 
cargo have in the past been taken from the island for city streets (Dr. 
Jackson). The Quaternary or Glacial Age of the geologic column gives 
us much of our soils of Rhode Island and these form tlie final feature of 
this chapter. The soil is the part of the State which man occupies and 
depends upon for hjs home crop. Every man owns his farm and gardten 
just as far down as he cultivates it. 



24 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

We began this chapter on Rhode Island Geolog>- by showing the 
necessity of a locality assignment for man where he would be the prime 
factor, the head over all creation and ruler of all creatures below him. 
In our study, we have seen how our state as a part of this continent has 
risen from the ocean bottom, just a small sample of this continent, and 
this a sample of the whole earth. 

Among all the specimens of creatures preserved as fossils, grading 
from the lowest forms of life up to man, no one is equal to man. Our 
proposition was that man should live for his brother man since no other 
creature had the social status that man exercises with his brother man. 
We have looked the geological strata through and have found this to be 
true. Tracing backward from our own day we see the sun in the midst 
of his planetary system holding this earth steadily in its orbit from age 
to age. The earth was made for man and his problem must be worked 
out here in safety. To keep our solar system in security the whole starry 
host must keep the creation time table and not miss a cog. This is the 
telescopic view of our subject of universal preparedness. 

We next turn to the earth below our feet and analyze the parts of the 
life stream leading up to man. Man must be the expression of form, 
of types physical, the prophecy of the coming man. Let each one begin 
with self. 

I have an entity, I am, esse, being, and, judging similar forms around 
me as also having identity, I have established communal faith which is 
based on sight. The beings next below man must have less mind than 
man, but the platform of live forms must be relatively larger than the 
spot man occupies. We find that the most of man"s type features are 
four-limbed, vertebrate mammals. 

Man has a brain reservoir on the top of a column of nerves well 
secured from injury, the vertebral column; he has four articulated limbs, 
and his young are nourished by milk, and are born without hair, to any 
extent. Other animals have these features in a less degree, especially, 
the size of the brain, which is just as we would e.xpect man's platform 
would be, at the top. This platform of beasts must have a prophetic or 
evolutionary platform to spring from in their order, and we find such a 
one in the vegetable-cell kingdom, for plants are the basal food for the 
animal kingdom to rest u])on. Each type of plant life from the immense 
forest giant to the microscopic plants of sea water are composed, like 
the animal life, from cell growth, but these are vegetable cells which must 
precede the higher ones. The food to be eaten must precede the eater, 
an evolutionary process which cannot be refuted. Yet plants must have a 
broader platform to rest upon which shall be, as a whole, lower in the 
scale than the cell structure, and so we find the mass of inorganic nature 



GEOLOGY AND SOIL 25 

ready to provide a foothold for every expression of plant life, and to 
supply the chemical food for its nourishment, growth, development into 
higher forms, type by type, and yet it is plain to be seen that inorganic 
matter as a whole is more primitive than organized life tissue. Still, it 
is a plain case that chemical sup[)lies must come from a still more ex- 
tended foundation supply than that which the chemical elements afford ; 
that they must issue from a vast, hidden supply house, an adequate plat- 
form to rest upon.. Now physicists are ready to inform us that back of 
all forms of matter, the invisible molecule exists that no so-called chem- 
ical element can preserve its identity without having its own kind, or some 
other married to it, so we speak of chemical attraction existing in every 
molecule of matter, whether it be a molecule of gold, iron, carbon, water, 
or marsh gas. Again, we must grasp the fact that the molecule must rest 
upon a yet broader supply for its elements to spring from, and again the 
physicist tells us that the unseeable molecule is made up of atoms, that 
atoms form molecules, and molecules form chemical elements and that 
these form the inorganic material of creation. Recent discoveries in 
radio-activity have enabled the modern expert in laboratory analysis to 
again subdivide our fondly nursed atom uhimate into electrons, and these 
again into ions, and that these least of all infinitesimals, the ions, are chas- 
ing one another around a common center as the planets in a solar system 
swing around their central body which holds them in their respective 
orbits only, that in the case of the ion center there is no body to circle 
around, and that the various ions themselves are only the kind of vortex 
activity that gives birth to the particular electron that each seeking others 
of its kind produces the particular ajtoms to form a particular molecule of 
a chemical element, this, in its turn, givmg the inorganic supply to feed 
the plant, to feed animals, to serve under the headship of man. This is 
not "The House that Jack Built" of the nursery tale, but the universe that 
God built, into the plan of which He placed so much of Himself as was 
necessary — His power, His initial force. 

******* 

V. Soils, Origin, Physical Characters, Classification, Serv- 
iceability, Etc. Origin of Soils. — The primary source of soils can be 
readily apprehended from their fragmental character. Any band lens 
will show that they are made up of minute pieces of rock, of quartz, mica, 
feldspar, hornblende, limestone, iron, and clay, with black, organic re- 
mains of plants. We may say. then that soils are derived from the rocks 
of a neighborhood or have been brought from a distance and deposited 
where they now occur. Here in Rhode Island we have both results in 
clear distinction one from the other, and also in varying mixtures of the 
two. 

In our western highlands, among the archeozoic rocks of our west- 



26 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

ern tier of townships we have the local soils deposited near the rocky 
ridges that in disintegration have yielded up their particles of sand, clay, 
iron, and other less marked materials, and these thoroughly mixed with 
organic flotsam are now found in the interstices of rocks, in glens, hol- 
lows, in fen and valley, and spread out as bottom land. We have the rich 
orchard soil, the truck patch, the grass and grazing land for herds of 
cattle to feed upon. In the more level sections of the state the great, 
\vav>' hills, and level reaches of old valley drainage, have been served with 
the soils ground down from Massachusetts highlands to the north and 
east, which have been brought by ice action from a distance of dozens 
of miles or even hundreds of miles away, and dumped as the ice melted 
and was spread out by water action in terraces or peneplanes where they 
now serve the agriculturist as soils, or if not fully mulled dowTi, are left 
in drumlins, of sand and pebbles, they yet serve for a scanty growth of 
grass and bushes, a thin, unproductive soil. 

Let us dwell for a moment on the distinguishing feature of our up- 
land, granitic, and gneiss home-made soils ; these are rich in iron, and in 
potash which give these soils a peculiar adaptability for the apple orchards 
for which Rhode Island is noted. The Narragansett Basin section of our 
state having so much of transported soils lying on the shales and sand- 
stones of the Carboniferous series of rocks is less rich in the alkalies, 
but the soils serve well for general agricultural purposes when liberally 
supplied with the requisite fertilizers. 

A more or less detailed famiharity with the facts which govern the 
growth of plants and the way that plants feed vnll assist greatly in 
securing an abundant return to the Rhode Island husbandman in his ef- 
forts to make the soil of his state in the greatest degree productive. We; 
have seen that nature's laboratory reveals to us in physical and historical 
geology the methods and material by which it carries on a great milling 
industry for the production of soils, and not satisfied with this work 
alone it likewise supplies adequate facilities for the transportation of 
soils over all our northern states to a line east and west, south of the 
Ohio River, and if nature is so bountiful in soil production it is the work 
of man to study to make it as productive as possible. The United States 
Government through its State Experimental Stations assists in this matter 
as far as is possible and we suggest a few of the methods presented to the 
public to help us in our own state soil problems. 

In soil analysis the first thing is to classify them mechanically; we 
have gravelly, sandy, loamy, clayey, and calcareous soils, disposed in the 
following classes by the relationship of the contained sand and clay : 

Sandy soil contains 80 per cent or over of sand. 
Sandy loam contains 60 to 75 per cent of sand. 



GEOLOGY AND SOIL 27 

Loams contains 40 to 60 per cent of sand. 
Clay loam contains 25 to 40 per cent of sand. 
Clay soil contains 60 per cent or over of clay. 

Some states have made a careful study of the relative amount of 
sand and clay contained in the soil as resulting from the disintegration of 
rocks, so that rocks as granites, Hmestones, sandstones, shales, etc.. in 
any locality become the basis for classification of soils of a given kind for 
a given crop would be right at hand. Maryland may be given as a sample 
state which presents some ten types of soils : Pine barrens, market truck, 
tobacco, zvheat, river terrace, grass, mountain pasture, etc., etc. The 
number of soil particles per gram, has a steady increase in size of soil 
grain® from "pine barrens" to "grass lands." 

From the mechanical analysis of the samples which were used to 
make up these type-samples and perhaps of a large number of other soils 
of known agricultural value it would be possible to determine the small- 
est and the largest number of grains per gram of soil where these differ- 
ent crops could be successfully grown. For example, no crop can be 
successfully grown except under highly artificial conditions of manuring 
with organic matter or by irrigation, on a soil having so few as 1,700,000,- 
000 grains per gram. Good market truck is grown on a soil having 6,800,- 
000,000 grains. * * * Good wheat is grown on' a soil having 10,000,000,- 
000 grains per gram, and this must be near the limit of profitable wheat 
production, for 8,ooo,ooo,ooO' grains per gram gives a soil rather too light 
for wheat, but well suited to tobacco. A soil having 10,000,000,000 grains 
per gram is too light for grass, which thrives on a limestone soil having 
24,000,000,000. Our type soils should therefore show the range for the 
profitable production of a given crop. We should be able also from the 
mechanical analysis of an unknown soil to give it its true agricultural 
place by reference to these established soil types. 

Perhaps New Jersey gives the greatest number of soils for a state 
of its size. 

Granite soils, limestone soils, slate soils, red sandstone and shale soils, 
trap-rock soils, r/a_A'-district soils, drift soils, j)Wr/-region soils, tertiary 
soils, alluvial soils. Physical features of soils we have seen are largely 
due to the proportions which they contain of stones, gravel, sand, clay, 
lime, and organic matter. The relation of the more important of these 
ingredients to the physical properties of soils may be noticed as we pass 
along. Stones do not count at all since their office in soil is negligible. 
Sand is heavy, is usually light colored ; the grains do not cohere. It has 
little power of attracting moisture from the air, and allows water to 
pass through it readily. It absorbs and retains heat well. A soil with 
much sand in it will be dry and warm; easy to work; not sticky; will not 
"bake." In dry weather crops on such soils will suffer from lack of 
moisture. Soluble plant food will leach through such a soil. 



28 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

Clay, or a soil with much clay, has a fine texture, and particles adhere 
tenaciously. It absorbs moisture from the air readily, draws water from 
below by what is known as capillary power, and holds it well. This tends 
to make such a soil cool, but it will absorb heat readily. It absorbs and 
holds ammonia and other gases readily. If stirred while wet it becomes 
hard ; often cracks in drying. It differs much in color. The presence of 
iron gives a red color. Commonly it is a light yellowish color. Clay 
soils usually have more plant food than sandy ones ; they hold moisture 
better, and are less liable to suffer loss of soluble manures or available 
plant food by leaching. They are hard to work, and often too cold and 
wet unless well drained. They "heave" as a result of freezing and thaw- 
ing. A mixture of sand and clay makes a better soil than one almost 
entirely composed of either. Clay added to sand makes it more tenacious ; 
enables it the better to absorb and hold moisture and gases ; gives it power 
to stand drought better. The addition of sand to clay makes it more 
easily penetrable to the roots of plants ; easier to work, somewhat warmer, 
less injured by being worked when wet; less apt to "heave." Humus, 
decayed vegetable matter, in soils makes them light in weight and dark in 
color ; greatly increases their power to absorb moisture from the air and 
by their capillary power; makes clay soil less and sandy soil more com- 
pact. It is valuable as a source of plant food. Most soils containing much 
humus are fertile, if not too wet. Lime hastens decay of vegetable matter 
and is used on wet land to overcome in a measure the free acid of the 
same. 

Following the mechanical examination of soils comes the chemical 
analysis which reveals to us whether the soil has the true plant food in 
its elemental make up. It has been seriously questioned whether chemical 
analysis of the soil gives the vital indication of the soil's productiveness, 
for it is a fact that all of the requisite elements may be present and yet 
not in the available state to be taken up by the growing plant and changed 
into the requisite plant tissue. 

A carefully prepared analysis of the soil should give not only the 
actual food elements present, it must supply the fact of how much of it 
is available in water solution, in the acids of the soil, and in conjunction 
with the air. 

Prof. F. H. King, in his book "Soils," on pages 84-87, states the 
chemical composition of ten examples each of two soils, sandy loam and 
clay soils taken from as many variable localities through the country; the 
result shows from this table that a chemical report on soils must be ac- 
companied with a mechanical knowledge of the physical condition of the 
soil before a satisfactory result can be attained. We have dwelt at some 
length on these essential conditions of the Rhode Island soils, their origin, 
and structure, now we briefly turn to the more technical chemical ele- 



GEOLOGY AND SOIL 29 

ments, for their general consideration in tillage, and open with the state- 
ment that when we speak of "heavy" and "light" soils, the real truth we 
wish to convey is that the adliesivcncss and not the zvciglit of the soil is 
referred to, and that frequent examination as to the existing influences 
of moisture, heat, friability, etc., can keep us accurately informed as to 
the chemical and physical correlation of soil and plant growth. 

The principal non-metallic elements present in the soil are oxygen, 
silicon, carbon, sulphur, hydrogen, chlorine, phosphorus, nitrogen, fluor- 
ine, boron. The prime metals are calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, 
iron, manganese, aluminum. In actual soil analysis only the fine earth 
(never larger than i millimeter in diameter) is examined, it being as- 
sumed that this fine earth contains all the plant food ready for use of the 
plants. The fine earth is submitted to digestion with acids, which sep- 
arate it into two parts — an insoluble residue which alTords an approxi- 
mate measure of the sandiness of the soil, and a soluble jiortion which is 
further examined for percentages of the alkalies, alkaline earths, and 
metaloids. 

Oxygen is a gas and enters into combination with all the elements 
except fluorine. It occurs in the soil in the free state as well as in imion 
with the other elements. The air is the great storehouse of oxygen, one- 
fifth of its bulk being this gas. Oxygen then never has to be fed to the 
soil for growing plants. 

Silicon exists in combination with oxygen and forms ([uartz, the sand 
of our soils. It has been estimated that one-half of the earth's crust is 
quartz, owing to its hardness and insolubility it is accumulated in the soil 
as its chief bulk. Carbon occurs in the soil largely in the organic remains 
of plants and animals. United chemically with other elements it forms 
carbonates, and with oxygen it forms carbon dioxide which in the soil 
is taken up by the water and causes it to have a greater soluble power 
than when the water is free from it. The carbon which the plant uses for 
its tissue is derived from the gaseous carbon dioxide of the air. Sulphur 
in the soil is in a combined condition, united with iron, as a sulphide. 
The sulphates of potash, soda, magnesia and lime. Gypsum, or "land 
plaster" is a union of sulphur with oxygen and calciumi, and is often ap- 
plied to the soil as a dressing to increase its crop producing power. 

Hydrogen combined with oxygen is water, so necessary for all agri- 
cultural industries. Water is decomposed by the plant action and its 
elements hydrogen and oxygen are at the service of the plants for building 
up starches, sugars, and other forms of organic structures. 

Chlorine is not abundant in nature, and is not found in the soil in its 
free gaseous state. In some form of combination chlorine is widely dif- 
fused, is never absent in the ash of plants. Sodium chloride is our com- 
mon salt. Its office in plant growth is not well understood. 



30 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

Phosphorus, never free in nature, is found in the soil in limited quan- 
tities as it formed a part of the rocks even of the oldest geologic forma- 
tions. The compounds of phosphorus are taken up from the soil and con- 
centrated in the tissues of plants and thence transferred to animals who 
feed upon the plants. 

The valuable commercial fertilizers are rich in phosphorus and are 
secured in large bulk in certain localities, and prepared, and marketed as 
fertilizers. 

Nitrogen forms the chief bulk of the air, is not found in any quan- 
tity- in rocks or in the soils except in humus, and im decayed tissue of 
animals and plants. By the action of microscopic life on plant roots in 
the soil nitric acid is made available to plant life directly from the atmos- 
phere in the soil. 

Boron and fluorine are not found in any considerable quantity, and 
in the ash of plants are not in appreciable quantity. Borax is the best 
known compound of boron. Fluorine when united with lime is a neces- 
sary ingredient of blood, milk, teeth, and bones of animals, and these are 
nourished by the plants upon which animals feed. 

The seven metals which are found in abundance in the soil, and which 
are built into plant-tissues are found in the ash of plants after they have 
suffered ignition. Aluminum is placed third in abundance in the rocks 
forming the earth's surface. It is found in the ash of Lycopodium, 
ground pine, but occurs in very minute quantities in the agricultural 
plants. It can hardly be called a true plant food. It is the basis of clay 
and it comes from pulverized feldspar rocks. Calcium and magnesium 
in their oxidized forms make up the limestone rocks. 

Both are serviceable plant foods and are found in concentrated 
quantity in the fruition products the seeds, and their presence in the soil 
is essential. 

Potassium and sodium are the alkaline metals ; the former is very 
essential to soil fertility and care must be e.xercised that the salts of pot- 
ash are not dissolved out by water and drained away when in fertiliza- 
tion it has in some way been added to the growing crop ; the rows of 
plants should not follow a steep laI^d^slope if such is present in the con- 
tour of the planted field. 

Iron and manganese are minerals usually abundant enough in the 
soils and quite evenly distributed ; the red and yellow tinted clays attest 
the oxide forms, and manufactured fertilizers need not contain oxides 
or salts of these tonic elements. We close this section of soil notes as 
to soil elements, with regret that much of great intet"est to our Rhode 
Island agricultural resources must go unstated. 



GEOLOGY AND SOIL 31 

A few words can be added as to the soils dependence upon mois- 
ture. Soil wat-er is constantly in motion. Wheni rain falls on the surface 
soil, the water begins to move in two ways, it soaks under ground, and it 
follows the slope of the surface of the land. When the rain ceases the 
sun comes out and evaporation begins from the surface of the soil and 
other particles rise from below, so a movement goes on night and day with 
varying changes of intensity. The plant as a crop is largely dependent 
upon the sufficient quantity of moisture for its complete development. 

Most soils need drainage of some kind to prevent disastrous efifects 
which come from too much soil-water, and some arid localities and dry 
seasons attest the need of seasonable irrigation methods. The market- 
gardener knows how responsive plant growth is to a sufficiency of 
moisture. Much attention is now paid to underground drainage and 
underground water-flow. Some of the states have been supplied, by U. S. 
Geological Survey Reports on "LTnderground Waters" their geology and 
utilization, these being similar to reports on surface river systems. Water- 
levels constantly changing from season to season, and from month to 
month, have a great bearing on productiveness of soils. The driving of 
artesian wells must be governed by a knowledge of these underground 
water-flows which penetrate the geologic strata. Gas fields, as a rule, 
conform to certain geologic horizons: for example, in Kansas and Mis- 
souri gas is found only at the base of the Pennsylvania, in the Cherokee 
shale. It is also true that certain geologic horizons are eminently water 
bearers. It is known that the St. Peter sandstone, where the other condi- 
tions are favorable, is one of the most prominent reservoirs for artesian 
waters. The uses of artesian wells, arise from their value in supplying 
water to domestic purposes, as a source of mineral waters ; to furnish 
water for irrigation ; for protection against fire ; for the development of 
power for manufacturing purposes ; for the production of heat. Last, 
but not least, the importance of the artesian well as a geologic agent, 
which is in itself a matter of great scientific interest; as in the study of 
tlie "New Madrid Barthquake," and similar phenomena. 

We may close this brief review of the soils of our State by indulging 
in a vision forward, a prophecy of the greater productiveness when more 
scientific methods in agriculture will preserve the soil in shape to be 
useful to man for an indefinitely long time to keep as near as possible 
rock decay that supplies new plant food, addition, up to the erosion pro- 
cesses, subtraction, in fitting, adjusting, in other words, the balance sheet 
of fertility of soils, a sort of legacy left by one generation to the next, for 
our race-preservation. 

In the state of nature the rocks continually disintegrate and lime, 
phosphates, and alkailies are at the demand of the natuial vegetation, 
which, dying returns these regularly to the soil, possibly making up the 



32 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

loss of these elements by water leaching. When, however, man places the 
fields under tribute to himself, to produce annually large crops of food 
plants for mankind, the soil loses yearly two to six hundred pounds per 
acre of the natural plant food, and surface water also robs the bare fields 
for many months of the year of its food wealth. 

Man must resort to fertilizers and to rotation of crops, to stay in a 
measure the pauperizing of the soil. All the lands of dense populations 
of past ages show worn out soils from long continued cropping, and our 
own virgin soil must be preserved from the same fate by special exertion, 
if possible. 

The reader of this review of the geology and soils of our State must 
have perceived a certain oneness of aim in the writer's mind which led to 
the selection of material from a large documental source; the aim has 
not been to awaken the student mind with simply interesting facts about 
our State, it has been the purpose to arouse a sense of mind nobility, 
dignity, in existence as a part of this wonderful planet of ours, of a 
certain ownership in the same. Our State, the smallest in the Union of 
States, yet an appreciable part, a type, a text of the whole of mankind. 

We can do no better than to show to the world how a Rhode Island 
citizen can stand four-square in realizing his duty, obligation to humanity 
at large. He is not to look as in the old way at the world as an interesting 
toy to be enjoyed for a season and then cast aside. Certain pri\-ileges rest 
upon the shoulders of the new citizen as he investigates the rocks, and 
applies the sciences in enlarging industries, and in conserving the wealth 
of the soils of our State. 

One of the text books on Rhode Island geology which we have 
referred to as the most carefully prepared, and best illustrated of all 
the Governmental helps to the better understanding of our State's natural 
resources, was compiled and issued under the direction of Nathaniel 
Southgate Shaler. late Professor of Geolog>- in Harvard University, and 
his interest in and proximity to us, causes us to regard him as a sympa- 
thetic co-laborer in the development of Rhode Island. 

We can do no better than to close this chapter with a few sentences 
from his pen taken from the closing chapter of his interesting book, 
"Man and the Earth :" 

"The identity of man and the realm in which be dwells. There is 
good reason to believe that the main idea embodied in the philosophy 
which regards the world as essentially kin to ourselves is to be that held 
by the men of the hereafter. The whole trend of the understanding as to 
the relation of man to the realm leads to the conclusion that whatever 
else he may be, he is the sum of a series of actions linked with all that has 
gone on upon this earth. 



GEOLOGY AND SOIL 33 

"Already the more discerning see that our race have come to the 
beginning of their mastery of this world by penetrating into its meanings, 
and further knowledge can only increase the clearness and sufficiency of 
this vision. We rnay assume that our successors will, generation by gen- 
eration, be more and more inspired by this understanding; that they will 
come to see the world as a wider aspect of themselves. 

"If the above suggested view as to the trend of thought of men as 
to their relations with nature be true, then we have not long to wait until 
the care for the economical resources of the earth which has been advo- 
cated in the first chapters of this book, and for which people are already 
prepared, will be merged in a larger care for the sphere as a part of man 
from which he has been alienated by ignorance but with which he is to be 
reconciled by knowledge. Seeing, as he must, for it is written on earth 
and sky, the oneness of nature and intelligence as its master, man is sure 
to go forward unto the higher life of understanding out of which will 
come a sense of which we see barely the traces in our time, of his duty 
by the earth. At present, the conception as to our place in the realm is 
so new, so confused with the ancient misunderstandings, that it is dif- 
ficult to see how we can do the first part of our task by cooperating with 
the conditions which have made for the advance which has brought us to 
the gates of the new life. Certain directions for our endeavors are, how- 
ever, plain. 

"To bring men to an appreciation of their station as masters of the 
earth it is necessary that they be effectually taught the nature of that 
relation. This is, indeed the part of modern science, but we are as yet 
far from its accomplishment. So far as science is now passing to the 
body of the people, it is in the form of special, though elementary^, knowl- 
edge of this or that group of the facts. Of such, men may have an end- 
less amount and yet not be nearer to the understanding of the important 
truth ; the need is to have this truth taught as a gospel. It has to go on 
to men with the quality of religion, by the way of imagination and the 
emotions with which it is conjoined. There is reason to hope that we 
are at the beginning of the process which is surely to require generations 
for its accomplishment. At best this enlargement will be slowly brought 
about and it cannot be expected immediately to affect the common folk. 
Unless the world of men should become philosophers, we must look in 
the future as in the past for the leading spirits, the rare men, to be 
guides to the new dispensation, the masses following in the ancient 
dumb way — taking their light not directly from nature, but in the good 
old way, mediately through their prophets. 

"Something may be done to hasten the growth of a better state of 
mind as to man's relation to nature by a much-needed change in our 

R 1-3 



34 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

methods of teaching science. We now present the realm to beginners as 
a group of fragments labelled astronomy, geolog>', chemistry, physics, and 
biolog>-, each, as set forth, appearing to him as a little world in itself, 
with its own separate life, having little to do with its neighbors. It is 
rare, indeed, in a very considerable experience with youths to find one 
who has gained any inkling as to the complete unity of nature. Seldom 
it is even with those who attain mastery in some one of these learnings, 
that we find a true sense as to the absolute oneness of the realm, or the 
place of man as the highest product of its work. This is the inevitable 
position of those whose task it is to advance the frontiers of knowledge. 
The mass of their knowledge required to make way in any field is so great 
that little can be known of any other domain. But this situation of the 
investigator needs not be of the ordinary man. Save for the merest trifle 
of knowledge which he gains by the simplest individual enquiries he must 
take this nature on faith in his teachers. So far from trjang to compass 
the learning of the smallest bit of the realm, he needs be limited to the 
little of it that will best serve to enlarge his understandings of the world 
as a part of himself. 

"In the revision of our project concerning the share of natural science 
in our scheme of popular education — a revision long overdue and now 
sorely requiring action — we need begin by determining, first of all, what 
of its truths have cardinal value from the point of view of conduct; what 
of them, in a word, help to dutifulness by ennobling the conception of 
man's place in nature. Other matters may be taught for other purposes, 
for their purely intellectual values, or for their economic uses ; but the 
great gain we are to have from the modern knowledge of the world is in 
the change of attitude it is to bring about in the sense of kinship with the 
anciently alien realm and of duty by the great inheritance of life. To 
the making of this new spirit no great body of learning needs go; it 
will depend for its development far more on the way of approach than on 
the mass of the knowledge that is gained. So soon as men come to feel 
themselves as really the children of the world, the tides of affection that 
instinctively tend toward it, but have been sorely hindered by ancient mis- 
understandings, will help in the good work, and give us souls reconciled 
to their great house and eager to help its order." 



CHAPTER III 



FARMING AND FORESTRY 



CHAPTER III. 
FARMING AND FORESTRY. 

The Indian appeared to look upon agriculture as degrading, and the 
task of tilling the soil fell to the squaws and children. In order to raise 
corn, the Indians cleared the ground by bruising the trees near the ground 
and then burning the trunks and roots, thus killing them, and admitting 
enough light and air to grow crops of corn, beans, pumpkins, peas, and 
sunflowers. In the spring the dead trees on the corn plots were cut or 
broken down and burned to furnish ashes for the soil. Cultivation con- 
sisted in scratching the ground with sticks or bones and making hills about 
four feet apart with wooden hoes or clam shells. The corn was dropped 
in the hills and covered. Fish and crabs were sometimes used for fer- 
tilizers. Huts were built in the corn fields to protect from the ravages of 
birds and beasts. The growing corn was "hilled up" into high hills. Some 
of the green corn was roasted or boiled, some was dried in the husk over 
fires or in the sun. The dried com was husked, shelled, packed in birch 
bark boxes and deposited in ground holes lined with bark to protect from 
freezing and moisture. The best ears were saved for seed. The dried 
corn was cracked in stone mortars and boiled, or pounded into meal and 
baked in ashes, or parched in the kernel. Succotash was made of corn 
with some other ingredients as pumpkins, berries, fish, or the flesh of the 
deer, bear, or raccoon. Grapes and many other wild fruits abounded, 
and plums and cherries were dried for winter use. Cornmeal mixed with 
maple sugar and seasoned with dried berries was a dish baked pn festive 
occasions. Bayberry tallow was made into candles to give light and an 
agreeable odor. The Indian celebrated a "green-corn dance," and a feast 
of "harvest moon." 

"Alas for them! Their day is o'er; 
Their fires are out from hil! to shore. 
No more for them the red deer bounds ; 
The plow is in their hunting grounds; 
The pale man's axe rings through their woods, 
The pale man's sail skims o'er their floods; 
Their pleasant springs are dry." 

Settlers in a new land have to depend for food upon the indigenous 
plants and animals. They cannot long count on supplies brought from 
afar. The Colonists were not slow to learn the Indian agriculture and 
to improve upon it. Bancroft says that the Pilgrims were an agricul- 
tural folk, and that one of the reasons why they left Holland was a better 
opportunity to follow agriculture. Their task was a heavy one, for they 



38 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

found the land timbered, and their tools were few and crude. However, 
they soon began the extensive cultivation of corn, pumpkins, squashes, 
beans, and imported grains. Some crops failed, others proved unprofit- 
able, others flourished. The management of fruits and animals intro- 
duced from Europe, had to be learned by slow and costly experiment. 
Tobacco was grown to a small extent but its use near meeting-houses was 
forbidden. Horses, swine, cattle and goats belonging to the free hold- 
ers "ran riot in the woodlands." Rabbits and squirrels were so numerous 
as to become pests for which bounties were paid. The ravages of wolves 
and panthers caused the earliest settlers to keep a large part of the sheep 
and swine on Prudence Island. After the King Philip War, kitchen 
utensils and other household furnishings became more abundant. Grid- 
irons, frying pans, and skillets had a place beside the boiling pot. Food 
prices declined from 1676, and in 1686 pork was 2.10 pounds sterling per 
barrel: beef 12 shillings per hundred weight; peas 2 shillings per bushel; 
butter 5 to 6 pence a pound; Indian corn 2 shillings per bushel. 

Long before the Revolution, the State was fully settled and many of 
the great problems of adaptation and acclimatization of animals and crops 
had been largely solved. In 1760 Douglas writes: "Rhode Island Colony 
in general is a country for pasture, not for grain; by extending along the 
shore of the ocean and a great bay, the air is softened by a sea vapour 
which f ertilizeth the soil ; their winters are shorter and softer than up 
island ; it is noted for dairies, whence the best cheese made in any part 
of New England is called abroad 'Rhode Island Cheese.' The most con- 
siderable farms are in the Narragansett country. Their highest dairy of 
one farm ordinarily milks about one hundred and ten cows, cuts two 
hundred loads of hay, makes about thirteen thousand pounds of cheese, 
besides butter, and sells off considerable in calves and fatted bullocks. 
In good land they reckon after the rate of two acres for a milch cow." 
The farms in the Narragansett country were much larger than those in 
the northern part of the State, and were cultivated by slaves after the 
manner of early Virginia. Dr. McSparren, a celebrated South County 
clergyman, says: "My two negroes were plowing in buckwheat in 1751 
for manure for English wheat." 

Prior to the Revolution, a famous breed of horses of Spanish origin, 
called the "Narragansett pacers" was extensively raised in North Kings- 
town, and vicinity, and many were shipped to the West Indies. Pro- 
fessor Channing in a study of the Narragansett Planters says : "They are 
a race of large land owners. L^nlike the other New England aristocrats 
of their time, these people derived their wealth from the soil, and not 
from success in mercantile adventures. * * * In fine, they were 
large — large for the place and epoch — stock farmers and dairymen. * 



FARMING AND FORESTRY 39 

* * It has been claimed that the progenitors of the Narragansett farm- 
ers were superior in birth and breeding to the other New England colo- 
nists, and that to this the aristocratic frame of Narragansett society is 
due. This refinement, however, belongs to the best period of Narragan- 
sett social life. It was the result of a peculiar social development and 
not a cause of that development." 

A chopping-bee was a common method among the pioneers of clear- 
ing land. The "drive" which brought the day's work to a climax, con- 
sisted in felling a great tree on top of a large number of smaller trees 
cut half off, thus breaking down a whole group of trees at once. The 
work was dangerous, especially in windy weather, and accidents were 
frequent. A large part of the farmer's energy was spent in building rail 
fences and stone walls which were supposed to be horse-high, bull-proof, 
and pig-tight. Many farmers had smoke-houses in which hams, beef, 
and bacon were smoked. "Killing time" in November was a very busy 
season, when fattened cattle and swine were butchered. F'ound-keepers, 
shepherds, fence.-viewers, and hog-reeves were appointed to look after 
cattle, sheep, and swine, and it was a favorite joke to appoint a newly 
married man as hog-reeve. Pounds are still to be seen in some of the 
towns. Cows, hogs, and geese were yoked to prevent trespass. One duty 
of the women was picking geese to secure the feathers to make beds. A 
stocking was pulled over the head of the bird to keep it from pinching. 
It is said that one goose in each flock kept awake to watch at night. A 
young man returning home late at night sometimes started a terrible 
clamor of all the geese in the neighborhood. The women pickled, dried, 
and preserved, many fruits, and the preserves were so rich and spicy that 
they did not need to be hermetically sealed. The icy conditions in the 
spare bedroom of the farm house were mitigated by heating the sheets 
with a warming pan which usually hung by the side of the kitchen fire- 
place. Of the old-time flower garden Miss Fade says: "The earlist list 
of names of flower-seeds which I have chanced to note was in the Boston 
Evening Post, of March, 1760, and is of much interest as showing to us 
with exactness the flowers beloved and sought for at that time. They 
were 'hollyhock, purple Stock, white Lewpins, candy-tuff, cyanus, pink, 
wall-flower, double larkin-spur, venus navalwort, brompton dock, princess 
feather, balsam, sweet-scented pease, carnation, sweet williams, annual 
stock, sweet feabus, yellow lewpins, sunflower, convolus minor, catch-fly, 
ten week stock, globe thistle, globe amaranthus, nigella, love-lies-bleeding, 
casent hamen, polianthus, canterbury bells, carnation poppy, india pink, 
convolus major, Queen Margrets.' This is certainly a very pretty list 
of flowers, nearly all of which are still loved, though sometimes under 
other names — thus the Queen Margrets are our asters. And the homely 



40 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

old English names seem to bring the flowers to our very sight, for we do 
not seem to be on very friendly intimacy, or very sociable terms with 
flowers, unless they have what Miss Mitford calls 'decent, well-wearing 
English names ;' we can have no flower memories, no affections that cling 
to botanical nomenclature. Yet nothing is more fatal to an exact flower 
knowledge, to an acquaintance that shall ever be more than local, than a 
too confident dependence on the folk-names of flowers. Our bachelor's- 
buttons are ragged sailors in a neighboring State ; they are corn-pinks in 
Plymouth, ragged ladies in another town, blue bottles in England, but 
cyanus everywhere. Ragged robin is, in the garden of one friend, a pink, 
in another it flaunts as London-pride, while the true glowing London- 
pride has half a dozen pseudonyms in as many diflferent localities, and 
only really recognizes itself in the botany. An American primrose is no 
English primrose, and the English daisy is no country friend of ours in 
America." 

Rhode Island, as its full name indicates, was an agricultural State, 
and this agricultural stage of society extended from the first settlement 
in 1636 down to the close of the seventeenth century. During nearly all 
of the eighteenth century, agriculture was generally practiced with a fair 
amount of profit while commerce and manufactures were slowly but stead- 
ily growing, particularly in the coast towns. 

In giving a brief account of the agricultural industry as it was found 
to exist at the beginning of the nineteenth century, it may be in order 
here to touch upon the social and economic conditions prevailing at that 
time. The inland towns varied from about forty to sixty square miles in 
area, and contained a population of 2,000 to 4,000 people. Some of the 
inhabitants lived in villages and the remainder lived in farm houses scat- 
tered over the township. These villages which distinguished southern 
New England from some other sections of the country, were calculated to 
protect from hostile Indians, promote religion, education, and manners, 
and prevent the degeneracy which may follow a .vide dispersal of people 
in a new region. The villages consisted of 50 to 100 dwelling houses, a 
meeting-house, and a tavern. These houses either extended along a road, 
or formed a square at some cross-roads, or inclosed a public common. 
The house-lots contained one to five acres, with barn and outbuildings. 
The homestead often included several acres of outlying fields, and both 
tracts were under cultivation. All the people in the villages and outside, 
had one occupation ; they were primarily farmers. There were no skilled 
mechanics and few learned professional men. The lawyers and doctors 
lived in the village, and the law was the avenue to public notice and posi- 
tion, and a relatively large proportion of the public men of the period 
were lawyers. The villages usually had two physicians having some 



FARMING AND FORESTRY 41 

knowledge of drugs, roots, and herbs. The minister often Hved on a small 
farm, cultivated a garden, and kept a cow. The business men included 
tavern-keepers, and the owners of fulling mills, sawmills, gristmills, and 
tanneries, iron works, acid works, etc. The mechanics were blacksmiths, 
carpenters, tailors, and cobblers. The relatively large number of artisans 
found in the small towns showed that they depended partly on agriculture. 
The sawmills, gristmills, and other mills used water power which some- 
times failed in summer. 

The overshot, undershot and breast wheels of early days were crude 
wooden wheels, difficult to install. The iron turbine of later date, al- 
though an improvement on the old wheels, was, for a time, not well 
adapted for the propulsion of textile machinery requiring high speed and 
regular movement. Water power was further limited in application be- 
cause it could be used only at or near the place where it was generated: 
it could be carried by belts and ropes only a few hundred feet. Notwith- 
standing these limitations, the early settlers utilized water to a remark- 
able extent. The fisherman travelling to-day along the water courses 
fails not to note with pensive eye the vestiges of dam, wheel and tail- 
race. In the language of Horace Keach : "The little mill has rotted 
down, the dam is gone and the speckled trout play undisturbed in the 
crannies of the pool where the old flume once stood. Here is the site of 
the turning lathe where were made spinning wheels, the piano fortes of 
our industrious grandmothers. Those solid oak high-backed chairs still 
to be found in the farm houses of Burrillville and the adjoining towns, 
were mostly made here. Heavy old men who would break down in the 
light fancy chair of modern times were safe in the old substantial seat 
of the Quaker pattern. At last hoe handles, scythe nibs, and bobbins were 
turned here." Cotton factories scattered through the towns were oper- 
ated by the native inhabitants, and the farmers earned cash in winter by 
turning cotton spools in the little shops erected on the brooks. Many 
farms had "watered meadows," where large crops of grain and grass 
were grown. Ditches skirting the hillsides and leading from brooks and 
springs provided the irrigation. The water was collected in small reser- 
voirs during the day and run on to the meadows at night so as to prevent 
the wilting of the crops. The tanneries furnished the leather for the 
shoes, aprons and breeches which were much worn by those engaged in 
hard manual labor. Cider mills were numerous, and cider was a favor- 
ite drink at meals, house-raisings, husking-bees, and other occasions. 
The tavern — a social and political center — was the headquarters on days 
of general training. Here were held the courts, and town meetings, and 
here congregated the village topers. 

The country store carried goods from the West Indies — molasses, 



42 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

rum, gin, salt, indigo, sugar, spices. From Europe were displayed broad- 
cloth and other dress goods, glassware, crockery, and ammunition. It 
was customary to hang up on hooks fastened to the ceiling many kinds 
of merchandise. To these stores the farmers brought butter, cheese, 
pork, and beef, which were among the articles sold to the West Indies. 
Says Charles Francis Adams: "In every store in which West India 
goods were sold, and there were no others, behind the counter stood the 
casks of Jamaica and New England rum, of gin and brandy. Their con- 
tents were sold by the gallon, the bottle, or the glass. They were carried 
away or drunk on the spot." 

The coast towns — smaller in area but denser and larger in popula- 
tion — engaged in fishing, ship-building, and trading. Yet even here the 
maritime industries were not sharply differentiated from the agricultural. 
Wherever the soil was suitable, farming was engaged in. There were 
twelve te.xtile mills, mostly cotton, in Rhode Island in 1807. Peace Dale 
had a woolen mill in 1804. Before 1815, when power looms were intro- 
duced, the mills spun the yam and turned the yarn over to the farmers 
to be woven at home by the women. The great concentration of textile 
manufacturing was within a radius of 30 miles of Providence. 

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, according to P. W. Bid- 
well, agriculture, although conducted in a careless way, was the mainstay 
of 90 per cent, of the inhabitants. Very little improvement in many par- 
ticulars had been made since the first settlement 150 years before. The 
pioneer stage of clearing the land having passed away, the Colonists 
settled down to a routine of farming based on their knowledge of the 
English farming of an earlier date. Although English farming had taken 
some long strides forward under the direction of Young, Bakewell and 
others during the eighteenth century, the Colonists were slow to learn and 
adopt the new methods. The implements were clumsy, the live stock 
were neglected, the fertilizers were wasted, and rotation of crops was not 
practiced. Under these conditions the land at length became exhausted 
or failed to respond to the poor cultivation. Timothy Dwight says in 
1823 that "the husbandry of New England is far inferior to that of Great 
Britain. The principal defects in our husbandry, so far as I am able to 
judge, are a deficiency in the quantity of labor necessary to prepare the 
ground for seed, insufficient manuring, the want of a good rotation of 
crops, and slovenliness in clearing the ground. The soil is not sufficiently 
pulverized nor sufficiently manured. We are generally ignorant of what 
crops will best succeed each other, and our fields are covered with a rank 
growth of weeds." 

The typical farm of 100 to 200 acres was divided into three parts, — 
one part was woodland, one part pasture, and the remainder was devoted 



FARMING AND FORESTRY 43 

in varying proportions to meadows and cultivated fields. The tilled land 
rarely exceeded lo acres, except in the vicinity of such coast and river 
towns as furnished a market. The farm house was substantially built of 
heavy white oak frame mortised and tenoned. The barn had a threshing 
floor with stables on the sides and hay mows above the stables. Hay was 
also put in sheds or stacked in the fields. The corn crib was raised on 
stone posts to prevent dampness and the ravages of animals. The farm- 
ing tools consisted of hoes, rakes, harrows, pitch forks, shovels, plows, 
carts, and lumber wagons. Nearly all of these were made by the farm- 
ers and ironed-off by the blacksmith. Men were skilled in the use of the 
flail, scythe, sickle, cradle, and winnowing mill. C. S. Flint describes the 
plow frequently used as follows : "The Carey plough had a clumsy 
wrought-iron share, a landside and standard made of wood, a wooden 
mould-board often plated over in a rough manner with pieces of old saw- 
plates, tin or sheet-iron. The handles were upright, and were held by 
two pins ; a powerful man was required to hold it, and double the strength 
of team now commonly used in doing the same kind of work. The 'bar- 
side' plough or the 'bull' plough was also used to some extent. A flat bar 
formed the land-side, and a big clump of iron shaped a little like the half 
of a lance-head, served as a point, into the upper part of which a kind 
of coulter was fastened. The mould-board was wooden and fitted to 
the irons in the most bungling manner. The action might be illustrated 
by holding a sharp-pointed shovel back up and thrusting it through the 
ground." With these wooden plows, two men and several yoke of oxen 
were often required to plow an acre a day. A cast-iron plow invented in 
1/97 was a great improvement over the wooden plow, but was little used 
for many years after its invention. Samuel Dean says the "wooden- 
toothed harrows are of so little advantage to the land, unless it is merely 
for covering seeds, that they may be considered as unfit to be used at all. 
The treading of the cattle that draw them will harden the soil more per- 
haps, than these harrows will soften it." Timber, stone, and crops were 
transported in ox-carts — heavy two-wheeled vehicles almost entirely of 
wood. 

Oxen were much used, and on the advantages of using oxen Presi- 
dent Dwight says: "The advantages of employing oxen are that they 
will endure more fatigue, draw more steadily, and surely; are purchased 
at a smaller price; are kept at less expense; are freer from disease; suiTer 
less from laboring on rough grounds ; and perform the labor better ; and 
when by age or accident they become unfit for labor, they are converted 
into beef. The only advantage of employing horses instead of oxen, is 
derived from their speed." By 1810 turnpike roads had been built, and 
then many horses and light wagons were introduced. The oxen were still 



44 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAXD 

retained for plowing, logging, and other heavy work. The horses as 
well as the cattle, through lack of care, suffered degeneracy, particularly 
in the northern part of the State. The Narragansett horse was too light 
and high-spirited for farm work. Rhode Island was noted for large 
hogs, and 600 pounds was not a very unusual weight. Almost every 
farm had a few sheep. The establishment of woolen mills was followed 
by the improvement of sheep and the introduction of the Spanish Merino 
sheep to mix w;ith the native breeds. The Devonshire cattle imported 
from New England were bred with the Holland Holsteins from New 
York to make a breed known as the "native cattle" — lank and lean but 
hardy. In the Narragansett Bay towns where pasturage was abundant 
and the market good for salted meat, some attention was paid to breeding 
and improving the cattle, and large amounts of cheese were exported. 

Corn was the most reliable crop, and corn and rye were ground in 
the local mills and made into brown bread, johnnycakes, and pancakes. 
Corn was also the chief food for fattening poultry, cattle, and swine. It 
was planted in hills wide apart so that it allowed of cultivation with 
the harrow as well as with the hoe. Grass was also an important crop. 
Barley and oats were grown. Buckwheat furnished honey for the bees. 
The failure of wheat was probably due to the bad management and the 
vicinity of barberry bushes. The potato — indigenous to America — was 
almost unknown to the Colonists until reintroduced from Europe by the 
Irish, and then every farmer planted potatoes. Pumpkins were planted 
with the corn and used for pies and fodder. Carrots, beets, turnips, peas, 
beans, and onions were cultivated to a considerable extent particularly 
in the coast towns. Flax for homespun linen was raised in small amounts, 
and the seeds were used for making linseed oil. So far as there was any 
rotation of crops, corn or potatoes for one to three years alternated with 
rye, oats, or wheat, and then the ground was seeded to grass, to be broken 
up again in a few years and the land planted as before. Corn was some- 
times followed by clover. Fish, seaweeds, ashes, and lime were sparingly 
applied to the land, but the neglect of the stable and barnyard manure 
was a striking feature of the early farming. The farmer knew that such 
a fertilizer increased the crops, but as has been said by an able writer, 
there was little incentive to raise bumper crops in the inland towns, be- 
cause the roads were poor and there was no market near at hand for 
farm produce. Other probable causes of the stagnation and decline in 
agriculture were the scarcity of farm labor, the discouragements of frost 
and drought, the gradual migration of hardy young men to western 
Massachusetts and New York, and the preference of some for the more 
lucrative maritime employments. Restless and obstreperous spirits chafing 
unde* the yoke of puritanical austerity and not satisfied with the small in- 



FARMING AND FORESTRY 45 

comes from the farms, found it easier to move to an unsettted region of 
virgin soil and forest than to improve tlie old homestead. One writer 
dilating on the conservatism of the times declares that "obstinacy of old 
ideas quenched the spirit of improvement. Superior intelligence was not 
honored but ridiculed in any except the minister or doctor. The experi- 
menter was not encouraged but laughed at. If a choicer spirit arose who 
did not plant as many acres of corn as his fathers did, and that too, in the 
'old of the moon ;" if he did not hoe as many times as his father and grand- 
father did ; if, in fine, he did not wear the same kind of homespun dress, 
and adopt the same religious views and prejudices, — he was shunned in 
company, and looked upon as a visionary." Bidwell says the farmers 
practiced a "self-sufficient agriculture" and that was all the prevailing 
economic conditions called for. 

The rough and rocky lands, so far as they were cleared, were used 
for pastures and orchards. A native grass introduced into England was 
there called "timothy," and afterwards reintroduced from England as 
English grass. Apples were the principal fruit and every farm had an 
orchard. Dried apples were used in winter to make pies, turn-overs, 
tarts, and slumps. The inferior portion of the fruit was made into cider. 
Peaches, pears, plums, cherries, and quinces were also grov^n. The 
orchards lacked care, and the fruit was mostly of poor quality. Wood for 
fuel and for the construction of buildings, tools, furniture, wagons, and 
kitchen utensils was in great demand, and every farmer was a woodsman. 
The open fire-places consumed enormous quantities of wood, and the 
early settlers practiced wholesale destruction of timber. But little first 
growth was standing in 1810. At this time there were few or no official 
reports on the yield of crops. Bidwell gathers from various travellers 
and other sources these figures for southern New England : Indian corn, 
25 to 30 bushels per acre; rye, 15 bushels; potatoes, 100 bushels; barley, 
20 bushels; buckwheat, 15 to 20 bushels; wheat, 10 to 15 bushels. These 
figures are for the period 1790 to 1810. In 1909 the average yield per 
acre for the whole state of Rhode Island was for corn, 41 bushels; pota- 
toes, 118 bushels; hay, i^ tons. 

After the War of 1812 there was a revival of business, and an in- 
crease in population, a large proportion of whom were mill operatives. 
Foreigners now began to come in. So that despite the drawbacks to 
farming, we are told by W. A. Greene that "on the 5th of September, 
1820, there were counted 126 wagons loaded with fruit and vegetables 
standing on Market Square, while only seven years before the presence 
of 49 such wagons had excited surprise and remark. In those days the 
marketing of the townsmen was all done at Market Square." From this 
time forth manufactures and commerce flourished and enlarged, and by 



46 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

tiie middle of the nineteenth centun.- the New England railroads and 
steamboats stimulated travel and traffic — particularly the coast trade in 
cotton, coal, and other domestic merchandise — a larger trade than the old 
West India and East India trade which nearly vanished. The develop- 
ment of the city of Providence and vicinity was followed by a rise of 
manufactures in the rural towns and the consequent demand for raw 
materials and fuels for the mills. The time from 1820 to the close of the 
Civil W'ar was a period of transition from the "self-sufficient agriculture" 
to a commercial agriculture which supplied much of the food, lumber, 
and firewood to the non-agricultural population. The Budlong farm 
which began business in 1850 in the town of Cranston is one of the largest 
vegetable farms in New England. 

The agricultural societies formed by leading politicians and profes- 
sional men of early days did much by way of public addresses and printed 
circulars to spread a knowledge of farming as it was carried on in Eng- 
land and other countries. Experiments were encouraged, and premiums 
were offered. The Society for the Promotion of Agriculture and the 
Useful Arts was formed in 1802. .A. Robbins in an address before the 
society at the time of its formation remarks : "Our husbandr}' is only the 
traditionary husbandry of our fathers. What they introduced we have 
continued. What it was a century ago, it is now. It has remained sta- 
tionarj' at that point. With great means of improvement, we have made 
none." Mr. Robbins urges an increase in the production of grains and 
grasses of many varieties, and of fruits, particularly in the counties of 
Providence and Kent. He declares there are no good peaches, cherries, 
plums, or grapes ; that the stealing of fruit is the cause of its non-produc- 
tion. Largely through the influence of this Society, acts were passed 
prohibiting the killing of deer, and the setting of fires to burn woodlands. 
The educational activities of these 'gentlemen farmers' had but little 
influence on the rank and file of the farmers of the inland towns. In 
1820 the Rhode Island Society for the Encouragement of Domestic In- 
dustry was organized, and continued its work of holding meetings and 
fairs until 1885 when its work was given over to the State Board of 
Agriculture created by legislative act at about that time." 

Under a resolve of the legislature of 1839, a geological and agricul- 
tural survey was made in 1840 by Dr. C. T. Jackson. The report based 
on this survey contains statistical matter relating to the agriculture of 
that period. Analytical tables of soils, peats, limestones, and coal, are 
given. Rocks and minerals are analyzed and described according to the 
mineralogical methods and nomenclature of that day. Farm reports con- 
cerning crops raised and sold, expenses, receipts, and so forth are pre- 
sented and commented on. These reports are mostly from farmers living 



FARMING AND FORESTRY 47 

in the Narragansett Basin. In the tier of western towns, irrst settled to 
some extent by persons who escaped thither from the turmoil of the Rev- 
olution, "book farming" was not indulged in. 

Quoting from Dr. James B. Angell : "The life in my native town 
during the years of my boyhood was very simple and frugal. The popu- 
lation was of pure English descent. I think my father within the period 
of my recollection, brought the first Irish maid-servant into the town. 
Farming was the chief occupation. There were half a dozen cotton fac- 
tories of moderate size scattered through the town ; but the operatives 
were drawn from the farms and were all Americans. The farmers got 
their limited supply of money from the sale chiefly of wood, charcoal, and 
potatoes, in Providence, and of milk and butter to the operatives in the 
mills. Some added to their income by turning bobbins and spools in the 
winter in the small shops erected on little streams upon their farms. 
They found a ready market for their products in the cotton factories 
through the State. The practice of the greatest economy was necessary 
to make a small farm support a family. In 1840 the census-taker per- 
mitted me to accompany liim in his gig over a large part of the town. I 
think we entered only two or three houses which had any other carpets 
or rugs than those which the occupants had made from rags. I believe 
that there were not more than two pianos in the town. There was no 
public library ; there were very few books in private libraries. Although 
the town was only twelve miles from Brown University, I was the first 
boy from Scituate to graduate from the college. The amusements of the 
country folk were few and simple. Every farmer was expected to take 
his family and his hired men 'to the shore' at least once, when the haying 
season was over. At the time of the August full moon the roads were 
well filled with these pilgrims to the sea." Sunday was not kept as it was 
in Connecticut and Massachusetts. It was the day for fishing and hunt- 
ing and for visiting relatives and friends. 

T. R. Hazard in an address delivered before the Aquidneck Agri- 
cultural Society in 1853, advocates the selling of meats, wool, and dairy 
products, instead of selling vegetables, grains and hay ; the plowing of 
weeds, vines and other debris into the ground instead of throwing away 
all such refuse; and the sheltering of stock and fodder. He says that 
manures should not be squandered on leachy soils, and that large teams 
kept on the roads hauling fertilizers, impoverish the farms. Horace 
Keach says that Burrillville land at the time of its first survey sold for 
12I/2 cents an acre, and later from $5 to $1500 per acre near factories; 
that the farmers are kept poor by trying to till too much land ; that the 
"clergymen labor with their own hands because there are many who do 
not like to hear a man preach unless he works." As an illustration of the 



48 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

old-time neighborliness, Mr. Keach cites the case of a farmer whose barn 
with contents were burned by lightning in the summer of 1856. Friends 
collected several hundred dollars to aid the farmer, and neighbors met and 
built him a new barn. 

The opening of the Union Pacific Railroad in 1869 shifted the grain 
and meat producing industries westward. Rhode Island fields and pas- 
tures reverted to forest. The rural population declined for a period of 
half a century. Along with the neglect or abandonment of farms went 
also a decline in the small mechanical and manufacturing industries of 
the upland towns. The tendency to concentrate these industries in large 
city plants with improved machinery and division of labor drew the arti- 
sans from the villages to the cities. The network of steam and electric 
railways, the extremely large number of which are detrimental to the 
country as separating families and tying up to hard and exacting labor a 
vast army of operatives who might otherwise engage in fundamental 
vocations, take away the trade; of the country stores. The hiring of immi- 
grant laborers releases the native young Americans to seek urban employ- 
ments. 

The tide, however, is turnmg away from the city. Abandoned farms 
are being reclaimed. Good roads, rural mails, telephones, automobiles, 
travelling libraries, reading clubs, electric lights, and power transmission 
are transforming country life. The United States Department of Agri- 
culture, State boards of agriculture, land-grant colleges, e.xperiment sta- 
tions, and institutes send forth technical and popular literature. Special 
commissions survey agricultural resources, loan money and machinery, 
and inspect cattle, nurseries, and orchards. Farm bureaus furnish ex- 
perts to examine farms, make demonstrations, and recommend manage- 
ment. The school garden movement is changing our conceptions of the 
purposes and needs of the rural school. The grange is an organization of 
practical farmers for the promotion of the educational, social, co-opera- 
tive, and legislative interests of its members. State and county fairs dis- 
play the actual results of husbandry. The agricultural exposition at 
Springfield foreshadows a great revival of farming in New England. The 
agriculture of the twentieth century is so large and multifarious as to 
defy brief description. Farming is to-day a money-making occupation 
like manufacturing and banking. Crops are produced for sale and for 
profit, and not primarily for home consumption. Of the new agriculture, 
there was none in early New England. 

But the glorious open country has drawbacks. The Commission on 
Country Life, in discussing special deficiencies, refers to intemperance; 
to the inequalities of taxation of farm property ; the scarcity of farm 
labor; neglect of the laws of sanitation; speculative land holdings; the 



FARMING AND FORESTRY 49 

"fringe" of cities as low-grade communities; the driving of hoboes from 
cities into rural sections; "horticultural hoodlums" who give the farmer 
a running fight to save his orchards, and vineyards. An editorial in a 
leading newspaper commenting on the evils of over-crowding the cities 
with immigrants remarks that "the ideal place for nine-tenths of these 
newcomers is a farming region." While the editorial is measurably true, 
in saying that "there is no State that will not profit from a certain amount 
of this new infusion of industry," still the question arises as to how far 
unrestricted immigration should be allowed to use up the agricultural 
opportunities of the native inhabitants and their descendants. In the 
language of Professor E. A. Ross: "I am not of those who consider 
humanity and forget the nation, who pity the living but not the unborn. 
To me, those who are to come after us stretch forth beseeching hands as 
well as the masses on the other side of the globe. Nor do I regard Amer- 
ica as sometliing to be spent quickly and cheerfully for the benefit of 
pent-up millions in the backward lands. What if we become crowded 
without their ceasing to be so?" 

When our forefathers landed at Plymouth they found a continent 
remarkable not only for the beauty of its primeval forests and the rich- 
ness of its virgin soils, but also for freedom from native destructive in- 
sects and plant diseases. Were it not for the curious mania of many 
Americans for exotic trees, shrubs, and all things foreign, a Federal em- 
bargo in early days would have prevented the introduction of these pests 
whose ravages now result in losses to livestock, timber, grain, and fruitf, 
running into millions of dollars a day. Years ago, European countries 
absolutely prohibited all entries of nursery stock from the United States. 

It is evident that the Americanization of America is a big task that 
needs to be face up and performed. A mere statement of the unfavorable 
conditions suggests the corrective forces to be set in motion. Education, 
religion, co-operation, publicity, loyalty, initiative, and constructive lead- 
ership are the forces that make for progress and righteousness. The 
handicaps which are not naturally incidental to the business of farming, 
such as treason, socialism, vice, and filth, can be removed, ancj the country- 
side can be made clean, attractive, and law-abiding. The natural and 
predatory foes of agriculture, like insects and plant diseases, can be con- 
trolled ; the dog nuisance abated; destructive pests like rats exterminated. 

Beneficial birds and other animals must be protected. Undeveloped 
water powers, mineral deposits and other natural resources can be adver- 
tised. One of the needs in Rhode Island is a land classification which 
shall select out these scattered areas of relatively rich, moist, and tillable 
soil from the other land better adapted to orchards, sheep pastures, and 

R 1—4 



50 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

forestry. A Washington expert connected with the Bureau of Soils 
writes : "There is no fear that the soils of Xew England will fail to 
respond to proper treatment and to careful tillage. The production per 
acre of corn in New England" (and this is true specifically of Rhode 
Island) "exceeds the average for the States of the corn belt; the average 
yields of potatoes exceed all others except in restricted areas under irri- 
gation ; and wherever New England soils compete their product excels, or 
at least makes favorable comparison with, that of any other section of the 
United States." 

The total capital invested in farming in the State in 1890 was $25,- 
000,000; in 1900 it was nearly $27,000,000; in 1905. $29,250,000; in 
1910, $33,000,000; in 1915, $38,000,000. In 1900 the average value of a 
farm with its buildings and equipment was $4,909; in igio it was $6,234; 
in 1915, about $7,500. In the decade from 1900 to 1910, the value of 
land per acre, averaged for all the State, increased from $29.46 to $33.86. 
From the summary of a review of Rhode Island farming in the twentieth 
century, by Dr. Howard Edwards, we quote : "To the question, why not 
more agriculture in Rhode Island, then, the answer may be made that 
there is no reason inherent either in our soil or in our climate or in the 
demand for farm products among us. One thing only operates to pre- 
vent our agriculture from being quite a prosperous and therefore a grow- 
ing industry. That is the lack of organization among producers and dis- 
tributors of such a nature that the cost of distribution might be lessened, 
a larger share of the price paid by the consumer might come to the farmer- 
producer, a more easily available and trustworthy market for his produce 
might be open to the small producer, and the reward for better quality 
in the goods produced might be such as to encourage the most strenuous 
effort toward further improvement." 

The golden age of the ninteenth centurj' with its public lands, pri- 
meval forests, wealth of wild life, and cheap food is gone, never to return. 
The man who now owns a few acres of land which he cultivates to ad- 
vantage, has the best assurance which the present age can give, of a life 
of peace, happiness, and independence. 

Rhode Island is divided into two physiographic regions — the Xarra- 
gansett Basin, and the western upland which is a remnant of a lofty 
mountain range, and which comprises the western two-thirds of the State. 
The bed rocks of the Narragansett Basin consist of a carboniferous depo- 
sition of coal, shales, sandstones, and conglomerates, and these fine- 
grained rocks have so contributed to the overlying glacial drift as to 
render this soil, known as the Miami stony loam, entirely suitable for 
general farming. This is a region of hardwoods — mainly oaks and 
maples, mixed with some ash, hickory, chestnut, elm, tulip, and poplar. 



FARMING AND FORESTRY 51 

Cedar swamps and thickets of birch, alder, willow, antT scrub oak are 
found. Pitch pine and juniper occur on the sandy plains. White pine is 
local and scarce. A large part of the land of this basin is under intensive 
cultivation. 

That portion of Rhode Island lying northwesterly of a line beginning 
at Cumberland Mills, thence running west to the meridian 71° 30', thence 
south along this meridian to Hunt's River, thence southwesterly to Potter 
Hill, may be described as the State's pine-hardwood region. Here are 
found hills, ridges, hummocks, eskers, moraines, gullies, swamps, sand 
plains, boulder trains, and other topographic residuals of the Cre- 
taceous peneplain and glacial invasion, — all of which go to make up a 
varied forest physiography. Springs, streams, and lakes abound. The 
ledges and bed rocks are mostly granite-gneiss with occasional igneous 
intrusions of diorite. The elevation ranges from 400 to 800 feet above 
sea level. The normal average annual temperature for the months of 
April, May, June, July, and August is about 62° F., and for the year 
about 50° F. The average precipitation for the five months named is 
about 18 inches, and for the year 45 inches. C)vving to the diversified 
topography, the rainfall, temperature, and frost are quite variable even 
within narrow area limits. Post-glacial erosion has carried the finer soil 
particles down into the valleys and exposed the boulders and coarser 
materials on the slopes. Shaler has shown that gravelly soils which, 
through the slow process of weathering, annually release phosphorus, 
lime, iron, potassium, and other plant foods, are less quickly exhausted 
than rich bottom-lands of alluvial origin. The principal soil types of this 
upland region are the Glocester stony loam, the .Alton stony loam, and the 
Warwick sandy loam, with here and there small areas of Miami stony 
loam, of Norfolk coarse sand, and of swamp-land, scattered over the 
region. 

The Gloucester stony loam, which comprises practically all the land 
not immediately adjacent to the principal streams, is a light brown sandy 
loam containing some gravel, abounding with boulders and outcropping 
bed-rock, and having a sub-soil made up of rock fragments. This soil is 
derived, not from glacial deposit to any large extent, but, from the im- 
mediately underlying rocks which are coarsely crystalline granites, gneis- 
ses, and schists of great geological age — Archean, Algonkian, possibly 
some Cambrian, — that have been broken down by the mechanical processes 
of weathering, with relatively little chemical decomposition, thus furnish- 
ing the fine gravel characteristic of the soil. The over-riding of this 
region by glacial ice evidently removed a large amount of material, but 
left little debris behind. The soil is loose, porous, unproductive, and 
quickly afifected by drought. It bears a prolific growth of shrubs and 



52 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

herbs which thrive on acid soils such as cranberries, huckleberries, and 
other species of the Ericaceae, and trees like chestnut, alder, oak, willow, 
birch, and pine. Most of this land is too rough and rocky for intensive 
cultivation, but is adapted to forestry, orcharding, and small fruits. About 
5 per cent, is cleared and cultivated. A better phase of the type is found 
at the foot of slopes and along ravines where grains and garden vegetables 
may be profitably grown. 

The Alton stony loam borders the upland ponds and streams, often 
in the form of terrace remnants, and is the soil upon which the white pine 
appears to reach its highest development. It is a gray or brown sandy 
loam to a depth of about eight inches, and contains some gravel and vary- 
ing amounts of small rounded boulders. The sub-soil is a mixture of gray 
or yellow sand and gravel containing a large amount of rounded and 
partially stratified boulders and coarse gravel. 

The Warwick sandy loam is a mellow brown soil containing some fine 
gravel, but is free from coarse gravel and stones. It is adapted to white 
pine and scarlet oak. It is rather too light, sandy and dry for black oak 
and white oak to make a rapid growth, although these timbers grown 
here are of good quality, being fine-grained, hard, and elastic. 

The region in question contains about five hundred square miles of 
woodland and may be fairly termed an optimum region for white pine 
which is here capable, according to conservative estimate, of a sustained 
annual yield of lOO million board feet of pine lumber. Since 1870 water 
sawmills have gradually fallen into decay, being supplanted by portable 
steam mills whose operators have practiced clear cutting without any dis- 
crimination in all kinds of growth, usually leaving no white pines of 
seed-bearing size on the tracts lumbered. One dire result of this destruc- 
tive lumbering has been that woodlands from which were cut heavy 
growths of pine, oak, and chestnut, have now very little pine reproduction. 
For only by chance would a pine spring up on a tract from which the seed 
trees were all cut. Many pine lots logged 5, 10, even 30 years ago, show 
to-day little or no pine, but only a growth of bushes, birches, scrub oaks, 
and other hardwoods ; nor is much attention paid to the reproduction and 
improvement of the hardwoods ; little or no provision is made for a sup- 
ply of hardwood seedlings to replace the exhausted stumps, so that the 
sprout forest also is steadily deteriorating. Thus it comes about that, 
during the last century, a want of knowledge and interest in the most 
elementary principles of forest management on the part of farmers and 
lumbermen has resulted in the gradual curtailment of the lumber business 
itself. Reservation of one to three white pines six or more inches in 
diameter on each acre of land cut over, would have gone far towards 
assuring the reproduction of this valuable timber tree upon which certain 



FARMING AND FORESTRY 53 

of the towns of western Rhode Island have depended so much in the past 
for private enterprise and public revenue. With the disappearance of 
timber and with no wise provision for its replacement, some of these 
towns now find themselves facing gradual depopulation and increasing 
indebtedness. Any town that tries to raise the debt by an even more 
rigorous application of the general property tax to the forest, and by 
opposing all efforts to secure fair and reasonable forest tax legislation, 
will only succeed in discouraging forest investment and protection, and in 
accentuating its present financial difficulties. 

Examination of many acres of cut-over land shows conclusively the 
enormous economic importance of the scattered seed-tree method of 
handling pine-oak woodlands. A sparse to good pine reproduction is usu- 
ally found within a radius of 100 feet from any reserved seed tree, and 
many instances are noted where seed has blown and taken root at a dis- 
tance of 400 feet, especially on the side opposite the prevailing winds. 
Tornadoes and the transportation of seed by animals account for the rare 
occurrence of young white pines at greater distances from the source of 
seed supply. Absence or scarcity of pine seedlings in forest tracts may 
be accounted for by recent forest fires, by the presence of a thick carpet 
of pine needles or other leaf litter which prevents the seed from reaching 
mineral soil, by the lack of sufficient light, by physiological dryness in 
the upper layers of soil produced by the raw acid humus sometimes found 
in deeply shaded places, and by the destruction of seeds or seedlings by 
squirrels, insects, or fungi. Cutting of the timber eliminates some of 
these deleterious conditions, and enables the seed to take root and grow. 
However, only a very sparse reproduction of seedlings may sometimes be 
found on cut-over lands where care has been taken to reserve seed trees ; 
such a condition must usually find its explanation in the drying out of the 
soil under the direct rays of the sun, in the presence of grasses and weeds 
which occupy the ground and further reduce the soil moisture, and in the 
presence of the pine weevil, and possibly of fungi. The white pine is 
adapted to our dry sandy soils because its foliage has a small surface, 
thick epidermis, and depressed stomata, calculated to decrease transpira- 
tion. The small number of root hairs and the histological structure of 
the wood do not allow so rapid flow of water as the abundant root hairs 
and other structural properties of deciduous trees. Since pine is a shade- 
enduring tree, its bole does not clean rapidly of lower branches ; hence 
the economic importance of thick natural reproduction and close planting 
in order that the dense shade may kill the low limbs and thus produce 
long and clear butt logs. 

The species composing the low undergrowth varies with the density 
of shade and other conditions. Pine forest has Gaultheria, Pyrola, Vac- 



54 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

cinum. Viburnum, Rubus, etc. In deciduous forest the herbs and shrubs 
are mostly larger and perhaps less xerophytic than those in pine woods; 
and include many members of the Lillium, Rosa, and Heath genera. 
When the timber is cut off the herbs which had thrived in the shade and 
moist air, flower very early on the cut-over land, and gradually diminish 
in numbers until, with the return of forest cover, they re-establish them- 
selves. Saprophytes and hemisaprophytes (orchids, pyrolas, Indian pipe, 
etc.), abound in thick pine woods. Beech and hickory are limited to the 
richer upland soils ; maple, ash, and tulip are found in rich swamp lands/' 
Sassafras is occasionally seen in warm sites. Junipers, cherries, and plums 
occur along the line of old fences. The success of any species in its 
struggle for soil occupation appears to depend not only upon the factors 
of site, but upon its own biological characters, such as rapidity of growth, 
vitality of seed, sprouting capacity, fire resistance, and relative immunity 
from the attacks of enemies. The reaction between the ecologic factors 
and biological characters, such as rapidity of growth, vitality of seed, 
sprouting capacity, fire resistance, and relative immunity from the at- 
tacks of enemies. The reaction between the ecologic factors and biologic 
characters is a matter of much complexity and mystery. 

The choice between agriculture and forestry in the apportionment 
of land is a nice problem involving many varying factors. But while it 
is rather difficult to lay down general principles to govern such choice, 
it is clearly an error in public policy to give permanently to agriculture, 
soils which respond to cultivation only temporarily, and which become 
sterile as soon as the forest humus is exhausted. The forest enriches and 
improves the soil. The woods-soil or humus supplies water, nitrogen, and 
other plant-foods. Without this humus, some of the soils are merely dry 
barren sands. 

Very clearly in Colonial times steps were taken to conserve timber 
and regulate the lumber industry. In 1640 Governor William Coddington 
at Newport made an agreement with the Indian sachems that if any In- 
dian should build a fire at any time and should not extinguish it before 
leaving it and thus cause damage, the damage should be adjudged and 
the Indian tried by the law of the Plantations. An order of 1638 required 
that two men view the timber on the common and apportion to each person 
according to his needs. Timber left on the ground more than one year 
after felling was forfeited to the town. Orders of 1650 and 1666 im- 
posed fines for taking timber from the commons without consent of the 
town, and an order of 165 1 forbade the cutting of timber on the common 
purposely for the pasturage of goats. A court held at Newport in 1639 
forbade two parties engaged in sawing lumber from exporting any timber 
from Newport without a license. In this same year two men were re- 



FARMING AND FORESTRY SS 

quired to furnish the town with sawed boards at 8 shillings per hundred 
and with half-inch boards at 7 shillings, delivered at the waterside, and 
with clapboards at 12 pence a foot. In 1640' Portsmouth at a public 
meeting, granted permission to export pijiestaves and clapboards under the 
direction of the town. An order of 1647 imposed treble damages for tres- 
passing on timber. The General Assembly in 1704 passed an act for- 
bidding the setting of fires to burn woods at any time except from March 
10 to May 10, or on Saturday or Sunday within this period. In the same 
year the British Parliament in order to preserve naval stores, passed an 
act applying to the Colonies, imposing a fine of 5 pounds for cutting pitch 
pine trees under 12 inches in diameter and not standing within an actual 
enclosure or fence; also a fine of 10 pounds for wilfully firing any woods 
in which there were trees prepared for the making of pitch or tar without 
giving due notice to the person who had prepared the trees for the making 
of the pitch. The penalty of 30 shillings provided in. the act of the Col- 
onial General Assembly of 1704 was increased to 10 pounds by an act of 
1722, with a proviso that if the offender had no estate he might be im- 
prisoned or whipped. An act of 1731 provided surveyors of lumber for 
each town, and an act of 1743 imposed a fine for cutting timber without 
leave on the land of another, and placed theburdenof proof on the defend- 
ant. An act of 1750 forbade the setting of fires "in the woods in any part 
of this Colony, to run at large, at any time or times of the year, under any 
pretence whatsoever" under penalty of 50 pounds for the first ofTense 
and 100 pounds for the second, one-half to be paid to the informer and 
one-half to the poor of the town. From this time forth there was little 
or no other forest legislation or regulation until 1872 when an act was 
passed providing a penalty of two years' imprisonment for the malicious 
burning of woods. 

In 1680, Capt. Richard Arnold turned his attention to building some 
of the first sawmills. He had one at Woonsocket, and secured the right 
to dam the Woonasquatucket at Centredale in 1700, and at Georgiaville 
and Stillwater in 1702, and to dam the West River, where he erected a 
sawmill, near Wanskuck, in 1706. About the year 1700 he built a mill 
near the southerly end of the dam of the Centredale Worsted Mills, on 
land belonging to Richard Pray. In 1750, the farmers banded together 
and repaired this mill and set it in operation, forming a company com- 
posed of the following shareholders in 1765 : Richard Coman, Stephen 
Angell, Nathaniel Day, Qiarles Olney, Nehemiah Smith and William God- 
dard. The mill changed hands many times as the owners died, and in 
1800 the owners were three — ^James Angell, Richard Coman and William 
Goddard. Logs beginning to be scarce and the mill being decayed, it was 
finally abandoned about 1840. Seth Mowry, who, witli William B. Irons, 



56 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

engaged in the manufacture of lumber in 1857, says that there were at 
least 15 sawmills with wooden water-wheels and up-and-down saws in 
the town of Glocester. where edged pine lumber of good quality sold for 
$12.50 per thousand board feet. Up-and-down mills sawed timber in this 
State unto 1870. 

In 1906 an act was passed, largely through the influence and efforts of 
Gen. Hunter C. White, establishing a commission of forestry. The com- 
missioner of forestry offers to assist land owners and lumbermen in mat- 
ters pertaining to reforestation, protection, and the cutting of woodlots. 
Since the establishment of the forestry department, a knowledge of prac- 
tical forestry has been diffused by means of printed reports, pamphlets, 
leaflets, public speeches, personal correspondence, the examination of 
woodland, and the preparation of forest working plans. Many small 
plantations of forest trees have been established, and many thinnings and 
improvement cuttings have been made on a considerable acreage in differ- 
ent parts of the State. Laws have been enacted providing for the exemp- 
tion of forest plantations from taxation ; the regulation of the setting of 
fires in the open air ; forest wardens ; forest patrol in times of drought ; 
telephone service for forest protection; fire lookout stations; preventa- 
tive measures by railroads ; penalties for those who set fires through 
carelessness and negligence. 

In Forestry as in other arts, first things should come first. It will be 
quite generally conceded that protection from fire is first and fundamental 
to nearly all other forestry operations. With the present State organiza- 
tion and small amounts of money appropriated for forestry, forest fires 
are properly the central interest of this department. There is need, to 
be sure, of an increase in the annual appropriation, in order to enable 
the forestry department to improve the system of forest protection, to 
give more assistance to land owners in woodlot management ; and to pay 
for the clerical assistance and printing required to carry on educational 
work. But it is an open question with practical foresters qualified to 
review the situation, as to whether this State can really aft'ord to spend 
much money in State forest reserves and State forest nurseries. It is very 
easy for a State to spend money in forestry and other projects. It is not 
always so easy to show actual results warranting the expenditures. It is 
easy to figure out on paper, according to the mathematical formulas of 
forest finance, the expectation value of a stand of planted seedling. It is 
not so easy to handle the plantation for 50 or 100 years and realize the 
expectations. If one can cite examples of large profits from certain 
blocks of planted European forests, one can also cite instances where "the 
results actually achieved under excellent management, afford additional 
evidence if such were needed, that great schemes of afforestation are 



FARMING AND FORESTRY 57 

doomed to failure as far as any direct monetary profits are concerned.'' 
Even in Germany, where artificial regeneration has been the principal 
method employed for a long time, there is a growing tendency to follow 
nature more closely. Furthermore, GitTord Pinchot, former chief for- 
ester of the United States, well says that in a forested region like Rhode 
Island, where a "well stocked tract of natural forest can be purchased 
for less money than it would cost to plant such a tract with forest nursery 
stock, forest planting is of much less importance than conservative lum- 
bering and fire protection." 

These strictures on forest planting relate chiefly to planting on a 
large scale, in localities favoring the less expensive natural reproduction. 
Private owners in this State have taken a commendable interest in forest 
planting, and have established many small plantations, particularly within 
the last ten years. The Russell plantation started in 1874 at Potowomut 
deserves special mention. Reliable forest nurseries in neighboring States 
now make it practicable for forest owners in this State to purchase at 
reasonable prices, seedlings and transplants of valuable species. The time 
is come when the State would do well to own and control for forestry 
purposes, some of the forest land at the head of streams. 

The forests of Rhode Island contain many oaks whose leaves persist 
through the winter and drop on the ground in late springtime. Again, in 
the autumn, the ground is covered with the dead leaves of other deciduous 
trees. These leaves are easily ignited and make hot fires if the weather 
happens to be dry. Rapidly burning surface fires, driven by high winds, 
often gain great headway before being discovered. Even when the smoke 
is promptly sighted, its location and distance are sometimes difficult to 
determine. A warden seeing smoke may take a long, hard ride only to 
find that it comes from a coal pit or a bonfire properly attended. These 
conditions point to the need of forest fire lookout stations connected by 
telephone with the forest wardens and land owners. Accordingly, in 
191 1, a law was passed providing that whenever a number of adjoining 
towns should establish at their own expense such lookout stations, one-half 
of the expense of maintenance should be paid by the towns, and one-half 
by the State. 

As the towns did not establish the stations as provided by this law, 
an act was passed in 1917, providing for the establishment of such stations 
by the commissioner of forestry. Two wooden towers have been built, — 
one, located on the top of Pine Hill in Exeter; the other, a less expensive 
tower, on Chopmist Hill in Scituate. 

These towers are range-finding observation stations, so that with 
instrumental aid forest fires may be quickly located. Each station is pro- 
vided with field glasses, a circular map table with alidade mounted at the 



58 



HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 



center, an orientated topographic map and protractor with numbered 
degrees. In case of distant fire where nothing can directly be seen except 
smoke rising beyond intervening hills and ridges, the two stations co-op- 
erate thus : The observer sights along his alidade and gets the line of the 
fire. He then telephones the observer on the other station to give him 
the numbered line of the fire from the second station. The first observer 
having thus obtained the lines from both stations, notes the point where 
the two lines cross — the location of the fire. 

The following is a list of Rhode Island native forest trees:* 



Alternate-leaved Dogwood, 

.American Beech, 

Balm of Gilead, 

Basswood, 

Bitternut H'ckorv, 

Black Ash, 

Black Birch, 

Black Cherry, 

Black Maple, 

Black Oak, 

Black Spruce, 

Black Willow, 

Butternut, 

Canoe Birch, 

Chestnut, 

Chestnut Oak, 

Choke Cherry, 

Glaucous Willow, 

Gray Birch, 

Green Ash, 

Hackberry, 

Hemlock, 



Hoarv Alder, 

Holly. 

Hornbeam, 

Iron wood, 

Larch, 

Large-toothed Poplar, 

Mockernut Hickory, 

Mountain Ash, 

Mountain Maple, 

Pear Thorn, 

Pignut Hickory, 

Pin Oak, 

Pitch Pine, 

Poison Sumac, 

Post Oak, 

Quaking Aspen, 

Red Ash, 

Red Cedar, 

Red Cherry, 

Red Maple, 

Red Oak, 

River Birch, 



Rock Maple, 
Sassafras, 
Scarlet Haw, 
Scarlet Oak, 
Shad Bush, 
Shagbark Hickory, 
Sheepberry, 
Shining Willow, 
Slippery Elm, 
Smooth Alder, 
Staghorn Sumac, 
Striped Maple, 
Swamp White Oak, 
Sycamore, 
Tulip Tree, 
Tupelo, 
White Ash, 
White Cedar, 
White Elm, 
White Oak, 
White Pine, 
Yellow Birch. 



* This list is probably incomplete. The term naturalised, instead of native, 
should perhaps be applied to a very few of these trees. 




CHAPTER IV 



THE INDIAN TRIBES OF RHODE ISLAND 



CHAPTER IV. 
THE INDIAN TRIBES. 

The Indian Tribes of Rhode Island. — India and Indian are words 
of Eastern origin. Christopher Columbus brought them to the New 
World, on his first voyage, in 1492. Sighting the islands on our eastern 
coast, the great discoverer, believing he had come to the outer fringes of 
that eastland of marvelous beauty, fertility and wealth, called the lands 
India or Cathay, and the red men who inhabited them, Indians. This 
was the land of Milton's dream, "Where the gorgeous East, with richest 
hand, showers on her kings barbaric pearls and gold." It will be remem- 
bered that in his urgent appeal to Queen Isabella for moneys to equip 
his voyage to the West, Columbus urged its importance on the ground of 
finding a new route to the East Indies and an easier way of possessing 
its wealth, by discovery or conquest; the "lure of the wild" was across 
pathless seas rather than along wilderness trails. 

The name Indian was strange to the savages — as strange as the 
people who thus saluted them, the winged ships in which they sailed and 
the Spanish tongue they spoke. The red men had known each other by 
ancestral and tribal names, but now they are ordained to carry a classic 
name, Indian, — a word older thani the Roman Forum, older than the 
Parthenon at Athens, older than the pyramids at Thebes, — ^a name they 
had never heard- before and whose meaning they did not know. 

Concerning this new people Columbus wrote that they were no 
wild savages, no cruel barbarians. They had good faces, they carried 
no weapons, they were courteous, and generous. They were "very gen- 
tle, without knowing what evil is, without killing, without stealing." 
"Because," he said, "they showed much kindness for us, and because I 
knew that they would be more easily made Christian through love than 
fear, I gave to some of them some colored caps, and some strings of glass 
beads for their necks, and many other trifles, with which they were 
delighted, and were so entirely ours, that it was a marvel to see." 

In his first letters to Isabella, Columbus tells her that he will be 
able to supply all the gold they need, also spices, cotton, mastic, aloes, 
rhubarb, cinnamon and slaves, — "Slaves, as many of these idolators as 
their Highness shall command to be shipped." Such was India and the 
Indians whom Columbus saw, while of the Spanish discoverers the red 
men cried aloud from house to house, "Come, come and see the people 
from Heaven !" 

Concerning the ethnic origin of the savage tribes of North America, 
there is no clear knowledge, although a multitude of studies have been 



62 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

made and opfnions given currency. "We do not know," is the present 
attitude of the best scholars in Indian ethnology. 

It is generally accepted that all the savage tribes of North America, 
with this exception of the Esquimaux and Alaskans on the north and 
the Cliflf Dwellers of Arizona on the south, are of one race of men, whose 
distinguishing characteristics may be classified and defined. Concerning 
the red men, it may be said that they were a different order in compar- 
ison with their northern or southern neighbors. In language, religion, 
laws, government, dress, dwellings, towns, house furnishings, food, tools, 
implements of husbandry, arms, occupations, works of art, literature, 
etc., etc., they seem to belong to a race far inferior to the Cliff Dwellers 
of the South West or the Borean inhabitants of the North Temperate 
and Arctic Zone. For these and other reasons, chiefly physiological and 
cranial, anthropologists have been unable to trace their descent from any 
existing races, their individualities differentiate them from all other 
nations and tribes of our globe. 

The Indian tribes were nomadic, and in tribal relations and local 
haunts as mutable as the sands of the sea. Parkman tells us that the 
Indian population, which in 1535 Cartier found on the banks of the St. 
Lawrence River, had disappeared at the opening of the next century, 
and another race had succeeded in language and customs widely differ- 
ent. At the same time, the Iroquois Nation in New York was rising to 
a ferocious vitality and fighting strength, which would have subjected, 
absorbed, or exterminated every other Indian tribe north of the line of 
the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi, had not the presence of the 
New England and Canadian white colonies prevented. With no individ- 
ual ownership in land, each family, community and tribe w'as constantly 
subject to change of residence. The wigwam and its furniture was not 
a fixture and its removal and erection was as easy as the task of a soldier 
on the march, pitching his tent for the night. As the usual occupations 
of the men were hunting, fishing and fighting, while the women, as serfs, 
attended to the raising of corn, beans, squashes, pumpkins, and tobacco, 
and to all menial service, it readily appears that change of residence was 
a matter of small concern, subject as it was to the varied and varj-ing 
conditions of whim, convenience, comfort or necessity. Forty miles a 
day was an easy journey for an Indian family or caravan and the promise 
of better hunting ground or tillage, in a new quarter, was a sufficient 
incentive for the excursion. Nomadic family and community customs 
prevail in our own age, in the states of the great plains and Rockies. 
The main conditions of tribal or family permanency with any of the 
Indian tribes consisted either in fixed community dwellings and furnish- 
ings, as among the Iroquois and Hurons, or in busiiness localities and 
holdings, as was the case of the Narragansetts, who made wampum for 



THE INDIAN TRIBES 63 

the tribes of the interior from sea shells, or of tillage and food supplies 
of grain and fish as the Wampanoags and the Penacooks, in New Hamp- 
shire. Champlain reported large Indian wigwam villages and fields of 
maize along the New England coasts, 1603-07. 

Subject and enslaved tribes were controlled as to their habitat and 
social conditions by the con(|ucring tribe. The Iroquois often gave no 
quarter to captive tribes, condemning all to immediate death or to long 
continued savage cruelty, ending in death. 

The Indian's instinct for fighting was a great cause of tribal disturb- 
ances. Their national and tribal wars usually ended in slavery or exter- 
mination. So completely was the Pequot tribe of Connecticut vanquished 
and blotted out in the war with the Narragansetts, assisted by the white 
colonists of New England, that it was declared a public offense even to 
mention the Pequot name. 

The Indian language was rich and varied as related to common life 
and common things, but very deficient as to ideas and concepts, mental, 
moral or spiritual. They used very long words with many consonants, 
letters with gntteral sounds prevailing. Cotton Mather said some of the 
Indian words had been growing since the confusion of tongues at Babel. 
Chargogagog-man-chogagog-Char-bun-a-gim-ga-maug, Charbana-konkom- 
mon, Co-cum-scussuc, Can-caun-ja-wotchuck, Neutakonkanut, are spec- 
imuns of Indian place names in New England, while Kickemuit, Narra- 
gansett, Woonasquatucket, Annawomscutt, Shawomet, Ponegansett, 
Chepachet are Rhode Island Indian place names. The total contribution of 
the Algonquin tribes to our American dictionary is about 200 words, 
including such words as Tammany, totem, mugwump, samp (Ind. Nawa- 
saump), succotash (Narra. Sickquatash) pow-wow. 

Indian place names have a local meaning which gives them value for 
preservation. The meaning is carried in the name. Socvams is the 
south land ; Pokanokct. cleared land ; Scckonk. literally the mouth of a 
stream; Kickcamuit, at the great spring; Nayatt, at the point; Toutssct, 
at or about the old fields ; Paivtiickct, the place of the great falls ; Massa- 
soit. the great sachem or king. Two New England States have Indian 
names: Massachusetts and Connecticut. In the State of Maine, hundreds 
of Indian place words are preserved in the naming of rivers, lakes, bays, 
headlands and mountains, thereby preserving the nomenclature of a 
race, whose monuments are few and fast disappearing. 

A key to the Indian tongue of the New England tribes was published 
by Roger Williams in London in 1643, the result of his studies of the 
language of the tribes of Massachusetts, Wampanoags, amd Narragansetts. 
It was styled a "Key into the Language of America," and while this vocab- 
ulary is limited to these tribes it undoubtedly had a wider relation. "God 
was pleased," he writes, "to give me a painful, patient spirit to lodge 



64 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

with them in their filthy, smoky holes to gain their tongue." Mr. Wil- 
liams' work was most praiseworthy in that an arduous study of the 
Xarragansctt tongue was made under such great bodily discomfort. In 
this connection it is of historic interest to note that Mr. Williams wrote 
"A Little Additional Discourse of the Name Heathan," treating of these 
New England natives "as also concerning that great point of their con- 
versions." A copy of this tract is preserved in the British Museum. A 
single quotation from this tract sheds strong light on the acts of Mr. 
Williams as a volunteer apostle for the conversion of the Indians. It 
at the same time shows Mr. Williams" attitude to the Christian faith of 
New England and indeed of all Christendom. A single quotation speaks 
volumes. "For our New England parts. I can speak it confidently, I 
know it to have been easy for myself, long ere this, to have brought many 
thousands of these natives— yea the whole country — to a far greater 
anti-Christian conversion than ever was heard of in America. I could 
have brought the whole country to observe one day in seven: I add, to 
have received baptism: to have come to a stated church meeting: to have 
maintained priests, and forms of prayer, and a whole form of anti-Girist- 
ian worship, in life and death. * * * Woe be to me if I call that 
conversion to God which is indeed the subversion of the souls of millions 
in Christendom from one false worship to another." It is somewhat 
difficult to understand how the observance of the Sabbath, baptism, 
church attendance, priests, prayer, are anti-Christian and subversion of 
the souls of heathens or any others. These were precisely the things 
taught by John Eliot, Experience Mayhew and Jonathan Bourne in Mass- 
achusetts, and earlier by the devoted, self-sacrificing Jesuits in the great 
North West. 

As to native religions or religious concepts, the Indians of the New 
England tribes had faint ideas and few religious practices. There was 
a native mental, as well as physical laziness and inertness which blinded 
all spiritual vision. In the ordinary ongoings of natural laws and in the 
usual employments in agriculture, hunting and fishing, in sports, in de- 
bauchery, or in war, the Indian saw little and thought less of any relation- 
ship other than human. In dreadful dangers and in the presence of 
hunger, thirst, cold, heat, physical torture and death itself, the Indian met 
all with a courage and a stoical indift'erence that have won the admira- 
tion of their persecutors, but there is no evidence of religious trust and 
resignation. At the more terrific exhibitions of nature, in storms, tem- 
pests, cyclones, volcanic eruptions, eclipses, comets, etc., the Indian mind 
was either overwhelmed with wonder by the majesty of the operation or 
stupified and cowed by an inherent shrinking from danger. No religious 
idea of a great First Cause, or a Causative and Protective Agency or 
Being occupied his thought, no place of worship or family shrine set up, 



THE INDIAN TRIBES 65 

no form of worship known, no prayer offered. Edward Winslow wrote, 
"They are a people without any religion, or knowledge of any God." In 
preaching to them in the Indian language. Cotton, of Plymouth, was 
obliged to use the English word, God, for want of any sign of a Supreme 
Being known to his hearers, and John Eliot in his translation of the 
Bible into the Algonquin tongue resorted to the same expedient. 
Pope's ideal Indian is a being 

"Whose untutored mind 
Sees God in clouds, or hears Him in the wind. 
His soul proud science never taught to stray, 
Far as the solar walk or Milky Way, 
But thinks admitted to that equal sky. 
His faithful dog shall keep him company." 

A Maine historian, long conversant with the remnants of the Indian 
tribes, writes: "The fanciful historians have said much respecting the 
savage's hope of felicity in fine fields beyond the gates of death, where 
he should meet his ancestors and be happy in a state of immortality. But 
from any conversation had with the Indians here, or from anything which 
can be gathered from those who have been most with them, there is no 
reason to believe that the Northern savages ever had ideas of that nature." 
Even Roger Williams, whose knowledge of the Narragansetts, for 
forty years, even to the minutest facts relative to their social, industrial, 
and religious characteristics, calls them "the dregs of mankind," and 
further says, "There is no fear of God before their eyes ; and all the cords 
that ever bound the barbarous to foreigners were made to self and covet- 
ousness." 

Sir John Lubbock has well said: "It is not too much to say that the 
horrible dread of unknown evil hangs like a thick cloud over savage life, 
and embitters every pleasure." Apply this comprehensive idea to the fright- 
ful war dances of our native tribes, to the terrible massacres of whole 
families of New England towns, to the pitiless tortures inflicted on women 
and children, to the noisy incantations of the pow-wows, or medicine men, 
to the neglect of their aged and infirm at the approach of death, to the 
noisy babel jargon of their funeral services, and to their burial customs, 
and we may clearly discern that these children of our forests were of the 
purest savage, degraded type, whose sad condition of heathenism awak- 
ens our sympathies, whose undeveloped elemental virtues command our 
respect, and whose courage in hours of danger and heroic manhood, when 
challenged to its best, calls for our praise. 

Verrazzano, in 1524, in search of the Orient, explored the coast of 
Rhode Island in the ship "Dauphin," entered Narragansett Bay (Re- 
fugio), and lay at anchor in Newport harbor, for fifteen days, from the 
6th of May. During this time he and his crew held familiar intercourse 

R 1-5 



66 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

with the natives whose homes bordered on the Bay, and the interesting 
account he gives is the first authentic story we have of the Indians occupy- 
ing both shores of Narragansett Bay. The story, as told by the great 
discoverer, shows the quahties of a keen observer and a careful reporter 
of what he saw and heard on our shores. Even the style indicates an 
artist's use of language, in the spirit of a faithful recorder. 

Verrazzano writes : "We proceeded to another place, fifteen leagues 
from the Island (Block Island) where we found a very excellent harbor 
(Refugio, Newport). Before entering it. we saw about twenty small 
boats filled with people, who came to the ship with various cries and 
wonderment. But they would not approach nearer than fifty paces. 
Stopping, they looked at the structure of the ships, our persons and dress. 
Afterward they all cried out loudly together, signifying that they were 
delighted. By imitating their signs we inspired them with a measure of 
confidence, so that they came near enough for us to toss them some little 
bells and glasses and many toys, which they took and looked at laughing, 
and then came aboard without fear. Among them were two kings, more 
attractive in form and stature, than can be described. One was about 
forty years old and the other about twenty-four, and they were dressed 
in the following fashion. The elder king had the skin of a deer wrapped 
around his nude body, artificially made with various embroideries to 
decorate it. His head was bare. His hair was bound behind with various 
bands, and around his neck he wore a large chain ornamented with many 
stones of different colors. The youngest king was like him in appearance. 
This was the fairest looking people and the hand.^omest in their costumes 
that we found in our voyage. They exceed us in size and are of a very 
fair complexion (sono di colore biauchissimo) ; some of them incline more 
to a white and others to a tawny color. Their faces are sharp; their hair 
is long and black, on the adornment of which they bestow great care. 
Their eyes are black and keen : their demeanor is gentle and attractive, 
very much like that of the ancients. I say nothing to your majesty of 
the body that are all in good proportion as belong to well formed men. 

"The women resemble the men in size and are very graceful and hand- 
some and quite attractive in dress and manners. They had no other 
clothing excejjt a deer skin, ornamented as were the skins worn by the 
men. Some had very rich lynx skins upon their arms and wore varied 
ornaments upon their heads, braided in their hair, which hung down upon 
their breasts ; others wore different ornaments, sucli as those of the women 
of Egypt and Syria. The older and the married people, both men and 
women, wore many ornaments in their ears, hanging down in oriental 
fashion. 

"We saw on them pieces of wrought copper, which is more essential 
to them than gold, the latter being deemed the most ordinary of metals. 



THE INDIAN TRIBES 67 

yellow being a color much disliked by them. Blue and red are the colors 
which they value most highly. Of the things which we gave them, they 
preferred the bells, azure crystal and other toys, which they hung in 
their ears and about their necks. They do not value or desire to have 
silk or gold drapery, or other kinds of cloth, nor implements of steel or 
iron. When we showed them our weapons, they expressed no admira- 
tion and only asked how they were made. The same indifference was 
manifested when they were given the looking glasses, which they with 
smiles returned to us as soon as they had looked at them. They are very 
generous, giving away what they have. 

"We formed a great friendship with them and one day we entered 
into port with our ship, having before rode at the distance of a league 
from the shore, as the weather was unfavorable. They came to the ship 
with a number of their little boats, with their faces painted with dift'erent 
colors, manifesting real signs of joy, bringing us of their provisions, and 
signifying to us where we could best ride in safety with our ship and 
keeping with us until we cast anchor. 

"We remained among them fifteen days to provide ourselves with 
many things of which we were in want, during which time they came every 
day to see our ship, bringing with them their wives, of whom they were 
very careful, for, although they came on board themselves and remained 
a long while, they made their wives stay in the boats, nor could we ever 
get them on board by any solicitations or any presents we could make 
them. One of the two kings, however, often came with his queen and 
many attendants to see us for his amusement. But he always stopped on 
land at the distance of two hundred paces from us and sent a boat to 
announce his intended visit, saying they would come and see our ship. 
This was done for safety and as soon as they received our answer they 
came and remained some time to look around. On hearing the annoying 
cries of the sailors, the king sent his queen with her attendants, in a very 
light boat, to wait near an island, a quarter of a league distant, while he 
remained a long time on board, talking with us by signs, and expressing 
his fanciful notions about everything in the ship and asking the use of all. 
After imitating our modes of salutation and tasting our food, he cour- 
teously took leave of us. Once, when our men remained two or three 
days on a small island near the ship for their various necessities, as 
sailors are wont to do, he came with seven or eight of his attendants to 
inquire about our movements, often asking us if we intended to remain 
there long, and offering us everything at his command. Sometimes he 
would shoot with his bow and run up and down with his people, making 
great sport for us. We often went five or six leagues into the interior 
and found the country as pleasant as can be conceived, adapted to culti- 
vation of every kind, whether of corn, wine or oil. There are open plains 



68 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

twentv-hve and thirty leagues in length, entirely free from trees or other 
obstnictions and so fertile that whatever is sown there will peld an ex- 
cellent crop. On entering the woods we observed that they might all be 
traversed by any large army. The trees in tliem were oaks, cypresses and 
others unknown in Europe. We found also apples, plums, filberts and 
many other fruits, but of a different kind from ours. The animals, which 
are in great numbers, stags, deer, hiix, and many other kinds, are taken 
with snares and by bows. The latter is the principal weapon of the 
natives. Their arrows are beautifully made ; for points they use emery, 
jasper, hard marble and other sharp stones instead of iron. They also 
use the same kind of sharp stones in cutting down trees and with them 
construct their boats of single logs, hollowed out with admirable skill 
and sufficiently commodious to seat ten or twelve persons. Their oars 
are short, with broad blades, and are rowed with the force of the arms, 
with the greatest care and as rapidly as they wish. 

"We saw their dwellings, which are circular in form, about ten or 
twelve paces in circumference, made of logs split in half, without any 
regularity of architecture, and covered with roofs of straw, nicely put on, 
which protected them from wind and rain. 

"The father and the whole family dwell together in one house. In 
some of their houses we saw twenty-five or thirty persons. Their food 
is pulse, as that of the other people, which is here better than elsewhere, 
and more carefully cultivated. In the time of sowing they are governed 
by the moon, which they think affects the sprouting of the grain. They 
have many other ancient customs. They live by hunting and fishing, 
and they are long-lived. If they fall sick, they cure themselves without 
medicine, with the heat of the fire. Death comes from ex-treme old age. 
* * * When they die, their relatives mutually join in weeping, mingled 
with singing, for a long while." 

The first settlers of Rhode Island came into close business and life 
relations with two great tribes of the Algonquin stock — the W^ampanoags 
or Pokanokets on the east shore of Narragansett Bay, and the Narragan- 
setts on the west, occupying the chief islands of the Bay, and the main- 
land from the Bay to the Pawcatuck River. Each of these two tribes 
were subjects of a great sachem and sagamore sub-chiefs. Massasoit was 
the chief of the Wampanoags, and aged Canonicus of the Xarragansetts, 
with his nephew, Miantinomi as sagamore or assistant. Each of the great 
tribes was made up of small tribes under sagamores. The Niantics on 
the Pawcatuck, under Ninigret, the Pawtuxets in Warwick, under Pom- 
ham and Soconoco, and the Nipmucs in the northwestern part of Rhode 
Island were subject tribes of the Narragansetts. Prior to the Pilgrim 
settlement at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in 1620, some fatal epidemic had 
swept over the Wampanoag country and had so weakened the once great 



THE INDIAN TRIBES 69 

and independent tribe that it had become a vassal of the Narragansetts, 
after a fierce battle on the Island of Aquidneck, when the tribe as well as 
the island fell under the sway of the western tribe across the bay. So 
powerful were the Narragansetts in 1620, that they held a masterly con- 
trol over the tribes of Eastern Massachusetts as far north as the Merri- 
mac River and the Nipmucs of the Pawtucket Valley on the north. Fre- 
quent contests took place with the Pequots and Mohegans of the Thames 
and Connecticut River valleys, but these tribes were good fighters and 
never came into slavery to their powerful Narragansett neighbors. 

Gookin says that at one time the Narragansetts could muster five 
thousand warriors for battle, and it is quite probable that the Wampan- 
oags in the days of their prosperity were of equal military strength. It 
is estimated that Canonicus held sway over 25,000 red men of his own and 
subject tribes at the time of the Plymouth settlement and that 10,000 of 
that number, under Massasoit, transferred their allegiance to the Ply- 
mouth colonists and the English king, at Plymouth, in March, 1621. As 
\'ermont had no Indian tribes and New Hampshire only one, the Pena- 
cooks, a small tribe on the coast, it may be safely stated that, at the open- 
ing of the Seventeenth Century the numbers of coast Indians in New Eng- 
land, including those on Long Island, did not exceed 50,000. 

Verrazzano tells us that the Narragansetts were superior in size, 
physique, dress and general appearance to all other savage tribes that he 
saw on his voyage. The mere fact of their control of the tribes of East- 
ern and Northern New England confirms all that has been written con- 
cerning them by all the early navigators and later historians. Tribal su- 
premacy in the main rested on fighting ability. Warriors made and pre- 
served tribal control. Strategy and savage cunning took the glace of 
diplomacy. Gov. Bradford tells of the trick of the Narragansetts to 
awe the Plymouth settlers. He writes: "Sone after this ship's deperture, 
ye great people of ye Narigansets, in a braving manner, sente a messenger 
unto them with a bundl of arrows tyed aboute with a great sneak-skine; 
which their interpreter tould them was a threatening & a chaleng. Upon 
which ye Govr. with ye advice of others, sente then a round answer, that 
if they had rather have warre than peace, they might begine when they 
would ; they had done them no wrong, neither did they fear them, or 
should they find them unprovided. And by another messenger sente ye 
sneak-skine back with bulits in it ; but they w»uld not receive it, but sent 
it back again. * * * Ye reason was their owne ambition, who 
(since ye death of so many of ye Indians) thought to dominire & lord 
it over ye rest & conceived ye English would be a barr in their way, and 
saw that Massasoyt took sheilter all ready under their wings." 

The superiority of the Narragansetts appears in two lucrative in- 
dustries which contributed to their wealth, power and long control in New 



70 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

England. They were skilled in making stone basins, kettles, pipes and 
other vessels which were cut from a soapstone quarr\-, near Neutacon- 
kanut Hill, within the present limits of Providence. They also made 
bracelets and other Indian ornaments and it is believed they wrought in 
some metals. 

The Xarragansetts were the principal coiners of wampum for the 
Algonquin tribes. This was the current coin in business exchange 
among the Indians as gold, silver and copper are with civilized peoples. 
Wampum was also used, when strung as beads for personal adornment. 
There were two kinds, white and black, made of the Quahog and Peri- 
winkle shells. Mr. Williams in his key to Amer. Lang., XXIV, thus 
describes the shell coin: "The Indians are ignorant of Europe's coyne; 
yet they have given a name to ours, and call it moncash, from the English 
money. Their owne is of two sorts: One white, which they call Meteu- 
hock, made of the stem qr stocke of the Pcrivindc, which they call Met- 
euhock. when all the shell is broken ofT ; and of this sort six of their small 
beads (which they make with holes to string the bracelets) are currant 
with the English for a penny. The second is black, inclining to blew, 
which is made of the shell of a fish, which some English call Hens, Po- 
quahock (Quahog) and of this sort three make a penny." 

Peag was the name of the substance used, both white and black. 
The black peag was the small round spot in the inside of the Quahog 
shell. The white peag was the twisted end of small shells, broken from 
the main part. When strung, these parts of shells were worn as neck- 
laces, girdles and bracelets and wrought into belts of curious workman- 
ship. They thus possessed an intrinsic value with the natives, for the 
purposes of ornament, and were readily taken by them in exchange for 
their furs. The regalia of the sachems was made of these beads, the 
different colors being blended and wrought in curious figures. The In- 
dians on the seashore made the wampum, no license being required 
from the chief. They also made the ornaments, their trade in peag and 
ornaments extending into the interior for six hundred miles. The Indians 
were shrewd in trade and would travel many miles to secure good prices 
for bows, arrows, dishes, necklaces and other ornaments. With their 
wampum they eagerly purchased European trinkets, knives, mirrors', 
tools and fire arms, although the Colonial laws forbade the sale of guns, 
powder and shot to the natives. Flattery of the whites was a means of 
profit, and beggars soon came to be common. Laws were enacted against 
trading with Indians, as debts contracted were not usually paid. So fond 
were they of spirituous liquors that prohibitory laws were made against 
their sale. 

Punctuality was a marked trait with the Indian. His promises were 
fulfilled with great exactness, justice was a cardinal virtue. Punishment 



THE INDIAN TRIBES 71 

for crime was meted out with promptness and completeness. The verdict 
of public opinion, when once obtained, controlled the sachem and the 
tribe. 

Arnold tells us that their love of news amounted to a passion. The 
bearer of some stirring news was a welcome visitor to the council fire 
or the wigwam. On such occasions the listeners would encircle the story 
teller, while in profound silence the news was told or a consultation held. 
Eloquence was a native gift, the orator often speaking for an hour or 
more with impassioned language and gesture. An audience to hear news 
of great import to a tribe was gained by sending swift runners to rouse 
the countr\'. A new runner, on hearing the call, would start at once for 
the next town, until the last, nearing the sachem's wigwam, shouted loud 
and long, proclaiming the meeting and calling all to assemble at the 
Council. Owing to training from infancy, and the annointing their limbs 
from infancy, the runner's speed was great, making from eighty to one 
hundred miles in a day. 

Indian corn was their staple food, and was boiled or parched or 
eaten raw. A spoonful of parched corn, when ground or powdered fine 
in the mortar, would make a full meal. Corn meal, when boiled was 
called Nawsaump, English Samp, which is Indian corn beaten and boiled. 
We call it hasty pudding or mush. Dried chestnuts were a luxury. 
Acorns were used as food. Oil from walnuts was used in cooking and for 
ointment. Strawberries abounded and made a delicious food, when 
mixed with corn meal. Berries of all sorts were dried and' used the year 
round. Squashes, askuteosquash, and beans, were much used. Venison 
and other meats were dried and smoked for winter use, as were cod fish, 
clams, quahogs, scallops and oysters were the chief food products for 
the coast Indians. These shell fish were very large, very nutritious, and 
health-giving. Whales when captured or cast upon the shores were to 
them a very palatable food. 

Of the social, moral and religious life of the Rhode Island tribes, 
we have various and conflicting opinions, .'^s already (|uoted, Mr. Wil- 
liams does not give us an exalted idea of Indian life and thought, Ver- 
razzano saw no evidence of a thought or belief in a future life. Gov. 
Arnold says : "Here we find the doctrine of the immortality of the soul 
entertained by a barbarous race, who affirmed that they received it from 
their ancestors. They were ignorant of revelation ; yet here was Plato's 
great problem solved in the American wilderness, and believed by all the 
aborigines of the West." But Dr. Palfrey, writing at the same time, 
says : "The New England savage was not the person to have discovered 
what the vast reaching thought of Plato and Cicero could not attain." 

Goodwin says: "Their religion was gross superstition and consisted 
largely in slavish submission to their pozvahs or priests. They worshipped 



72 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

many gods, of whom the chief was Kichtan, the original creator and dis- 
penser of good here and hereafter." Arnold tells us of "their great God, 
Co7vtantozcnt, who lived in the Southwest, the region of balmy airs. 
From him came their grains and fruits and to his home sped the souls of 
their virtuous dead to enjoy an eternity of sensual bliss." Of lesser 
deities, Mr. Williams obtained the names of thirty-seven, to all of which 
they prayed in their services and worship. 

Verrazzano wrote in 1524: "As to the religious faith of all these 
tribes (in New England), not understanding their language we could 
not learn by signs or gestures, anything certain. It seemed to us that 
they liad no religion, nor any knowledge of a First Cause, or Mover — 
that they worshipped neither the heavens, stars, sun or moon nor the 
planets. * * * Our conclusion was that they had no religion but 
lived without any." 

While it is impossible to reconcile these conflicting opinions, we 
may accept the poet Longfellow's interpretation of the Indian faith in 
his address to those : 

"Who have faith in God and Nature, 
Who believe that in all ages 
Every human heart is human ; 
That even in savage bosoms 
There are gropings, yearnings, strivings, 
For the good they comprehend not ; 
That the feeble hands and helpless, 
Groping blindly in the darkness, 
Touch God's right hand in that darkness. 
And are lifted up and strengthened." 

Perhaps the most valuable contribution from the pen of Roger Wil- 
liams was "A Key Into the Language of America," containing a large 
number of Indian words, of the Narragansetts and other tribes with 
whom' he had business or friendly relations, and from whom he obtained 
much first-hand information as to their character, manners and customs, 
opinions and beliefs, while much of his writings is unintelligible to the 
modern mind and can have no value except as museum curios, the "Key" 
has a permanent value in its account of matters relating to the Indians, 
which he saw, heard and experienced, the author believes he is doing a 
double service to the reader by quoting liberally from Mr. Williams' own 
pen the results of his studies and observations. While Trumbull has 
shown the faults and inaccuracies of Mr. Williams' key-words, no one can 
reasonably doubt the general accuracy of his notes, put in print as soon 
as made, after his contact with the natives. It is greatly to his credit 
that he won and held the confidence of the chiefs of the Narragansetts 
and Wampanoags, and that he literally ate, drank, toiled and slept with 
them, in the earnestness of his desire "to do the natives good," in answer 
to his prayer: "If the Lord please to grant my desires that I may intend 



THE INDIAN TRIBES 73 

what I long after, the natives' souls." One thing is certain, the language 
of the Rhode Island Indians, rude, narrow, hard, gutteral, as it was, is 
as dead as the people who spoke it, but the lives they lived, the beliefs 
they held, the business they transacted, the social relations they main- 
tained, the wars they engaged in, their deaths, burials, and extermination, 
will be the treasures of the historian for all time. Mr. Williams says : 

Their names are of two sorts: First, those of the English giving, as 
Natives, Salvages, Indians, Wild-Men (so the Dutch call them IVilden) 
Abergeny (aborigines), Men, Pagans, Barbarians, Heathen. 

Secondly, their names which they give themselves. * * * First, 
general, belonging to all Natiz'es, as Ninnuock, Minnimissinnntvock, En- 
iskcctompauzvog , which signifies Men, Folk or People. * * * Sec- 
ondly, particular names, peculiar to severall nations, of them amongst 
themselves, as Nanhigganeuck, Massachuseuck, Caivasumseuck, Cow^ 
zveseuck, Quintikoock. Quinnipieuok, Pequttog, etc. 

From Adam and Noah that they spring, it is granted on all hands. 
But for their later Descent, and whence they came into those part, it 
seemed as hard to finde, as to finde the Well-head of some fresh streame, 
which running many miles out of the country to the salt Ocean, hath met 
with many mixing streams by the way. They say themselves, that they 
have sprung and grozvn up in that very place, like the very trees of the 
zi'ildcrness. They say that their great God Cazvtantozvwit created those 
parts. * * * They have no Clothes, Bookes, nor Letters, and con- 
ceive their Fathers never had ; and therefore they are easily persuaded 
that the God that made English men is a greater God, because He hath 
so richly endowed the English above themschcs. But when they heare 
that about sixteen hundred yeeres agoe, England and the inhabitants 
thereof were like unto themselves, and since have received from God, 
Clothes, Books, &c., they are greatly afifected with a secret hope concern- 
ing themselves. * * * 

Others (and myself) have conceived some of their words to hold 
affinity to the Hebrews. 

Secondly, they constantly annoint their heads as the Jewes did. 

Thirdly, they give Dozvrics for their wives, as the Jewes did. 

Fourthly, * * * th-gy constantly separate their women (during 
the time of their monthly sickness) in a little house alone by themselves 
foure or five dayes, and hold it an irrelijious thing for either Father or 
Husband or any Male to come near them. 

* * * As the Greekes and other Nations, and ourselves call the 
Seven Starres (or Charles VVaine the Beare) so doe they Mask or Pau- 
kunnazvazv the Beare. 

Tliey have many strange Relations of one Wetucks, a man that 
wrought great Miracles amongst them, and zvalking upon the zvaters, &c., 
with some kind of broken Resemblance to the Sonne of God. 

Eastly, it is famous that the Souzcest (Sozmniu) is the great sub- 
ject of their discourse. From them their traditions. There they say 
(at the South West) is the Court of their great God Cautantouzvit ; at 
the Soutli West are their Forefathers soiiles ; to the South West they goe 



74 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

themselves when they dye ; from the South West came their Come and 
Beanes out of their great God Cautantowvvits field; and indeed the fur- 
ther A'ortlnMrd and IVestzcard from us their Corne will not grow, but 
to the Southward better and better. I dare not conjecture in these un- 
certainties, 1 believe they are lost and yet hope ( in the Lord's holy 
season) some of the wildest of them shall be found to share in the blood 
of the Son of God. * * * 

The natives are of two sorts (as the English are). Some more rude 
and clownish, who are not so apt to Salute, but upon Salutation re-salute 
lovingly. Others, and the generall, are sober and grave, and yet chear- 
ful in a meane, and as ready to begin a salutation as to re-salute, which 
yet the English generally begin, out of desire to civilize them. 

What Chearc iXetop, is the generall salutation of all English towards 
them. A'etof' is friend. They are exceedingly delighted with Salutations 
in their ovv-n language. Cozcaunkamisli, my service to you, is a special 
word of salutation. 

In the Xarragansett Country (which is the chief people in the land), 
a man shall come to many Townes, some bigger, some lesser, it may be 
a dozen in 20 miles travel. 

As commonly a single person has no house, so after the death of a 
husband or wife, they often break up house, and live here and there 
awhile with friends, to allay their excessive sorrows. 

Obscure and mean persons have no names. * * * Again, be- 
cause they abhor to name the dead ( death being the king of terrors to 
all natural men, and although the natives hold the soul to live forever, 
yet not holding a Resurrection, they die and mourn without hope). In 
that respect I say if any of their Sachems or neighbours die who were 
of their names ( family ) they lay down those names as dead. * * * 
They are remarkably free and courteous to invite all strangers in and if 
any came to them upon any occasion (business) they request them to 
come in if they come not in themselves. 

I have acknowledged amongst them an heart sensible of kindnesses 
and have reaped kindness again from many, seven years after, which I 
myself had forgotten. * * * There is a favor of civility and cour- 
tesy even amongst these wild Americans, both amongst themselves and 
towards strangers. 

Of eating and entertamments, parched meal (Xokehick) is a ready 
and very wholesome food, which they eat with a little water, hot or cold. 
I have travelled with near 200 Indians 100 miles through the woods, every 
man carrying a little basket of this (Nokehick) at his back, and sometimes 
in a hollow leather girdle about his middle sufficient for a man three or 
four days. With this ready provision ( food ) and their bow^ and arrows 
are they ready for war and travel at an hour's warning. With a spoonful 
of this meal and a spoonful of water from the brook, have I made many 
a good dinner and supper. 

Nasaump is a kind of meal pottage, unparched. From this the Eng- 
lish call their Samp, which is the Indian corn, beaten and boiled and 
eaten hot or cold with milk or butter, which are mercies beyond the 
native's plain water and which is a dish exceeding wholesome for the 
English bodies 



THE INDIAN TRIBES 75 

The trce-eatcrs are a people so called (living between three and four 
hundred miles west into the land) from their eating only * * * 
trees. They are men-eaters, they set no corn, but live on the bark of 
chestnut, walnut and other fine trees. Thev dry and eat this bark with 
the fat of beasts and sometimes of men. The people are the terror of 
the neighbor natives and yet these rebels the Son of God may subdue. 

They generally all take tobacco and it is commonly the only plant 
which men labor in, though women managing all the rest. They say they 
take tobacco for two causes, first, against the rheum which causes the 
toothache, which they are impatient of, and secondly, to revive and re- 
fresh them, they drinking nothing but water. 

Whoever comes in while they are eating, they offer them to eat that 
which they have, though but little enough prepared for themselves. It is 
a strange truth that a man shall generally find more free entertainment 
amongst these barbarians than among thousands that call themselves 
Christians. * * * Howling and shouting is their alarm, they having 
no drums or trumpets ; but whether an enemy approaches or fire break 
out this alarm passes from house to house. * * * 

They lay wood on the fire plentifully when they lie down to sleep 
winter and summer **=!■- their fire is instead of our bed clothes. 
And so themselves and any that have occasion to lodge with them, must 
be content to turn often to the fire, if the night be cold, and they who 
first awake must repair the fires. 

When they have a bad dream which they conceive to be a threaten- 
ing from God, they fall to prayer, at all times of the night, especially early 
before day. 

I once travelled to an Island of the wildest in our parts, where in 
the night an Indian had a vision or dream of the Sun darting a Beam 
into his Breast which he conceived to be the Messenger of his Death. 
This poor native called his friends and neighbors, and prepared some 
little refreshing for them, but himself was kept waking and fasting in 
great humiliations and invocations for lo days and nights. * * * 

Nature and custom give sound sleep to these Americans on the 
Earth, on a board or mat. 

Having no letters nor arts, 'tis admirable how quick they are in 
casting up great numbers, with the help of grains of '-orn, instead of 
Europe's pens and counters. 

They hold the band of brotherhood so dear, that when one had com- 
mitted a murder and fled, they executed his brother ; it is common for a 
brother to pay the debt of a deceased brother. 

Their virgins are distinguished by a bashful falling down of their 
hair over their eyes. 

There are no beggars amongst them, noi fatherless children unpro- 
vided for. Their affections, especially to their children, are very strong, 
so that I have known a father take so grievously the loss of his child that 
he hath cut and stabbed himself with grief and rage. This e.xtreme af- 
fection, together with want of learning, makes their children saucy, bold, 
and undutiful. * * * 

For their houses, the men commonly get aind fix long poles which 
the women cover with mats and line them with embroidered mats which 



76 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

the women make and call them Munnotaubana or hanging, which amongst 
them make as fair a show as hangings with us. Home is a solemn word 
amongst them, and no man will offer any hindrance to him, who after 
some absence is going to visit his family. 

Two families will live comfortably and lovingly in a little round 
house of some fourteen or si.xteen feet over, and some more families in 
proportion. 

They point with the hand to the sun. by whose height they keep 
account of the day, and by the moon and stars by night, as we do by 
clocks and dials. 

They are as full of business and as impatient of hindrance as any 
merchant in Europe. 

Commonly they never shut their doors, day nor night, and 'tis rare 
that any hurt is done. 

Instead of shelves they have several baskets w^herein they put all 
their household stuff; they have some great bags»or sacks made of hemp, 
which will hold five or six bushels. 

Their women constantly beat all tlieir com with hand ; they plant it, 
dress it. gather it, bam it, beat it, and take as much pains as any people 
in the world, which labor is questionless one cause of the extraordinary 
ease of childbirth. 

Note. — "Wherein they exceed our English husbandmen" (says 
Wood), "keeping it so clean with their clamme shell hoes, as if it were 
a garden rather than a cornfield', not suffering a choaking weede to 
advance his audacious head above their infant com, or an undermining 
worme to spoile his spumes." 

It is almost incredible what burdens the poor women carry of com, 

of fish, of beans, of mats and a child beside. 

******* 

They nurse all their children themselves; yet if she be an high or 

rich woman, she maintains a nurse to tend the child. 

******* 

They have also amongst them natural fools, either so born, or acci- 
dentally deprived of reason. Many of them naturally Princes, or else 
industrious persons, are rich, and the poor among them will say they 
want nothing. 

Bewailing is very solemn among them morning and evening, and 
sometimes in the night they bewail their lost husbands, wives, children, 
brothers or sisters. Sometimes a quarter, half, yea, a whole year, and 
longer, if it be for a great Prince. 

Some men do not use tobacco, but they are rare birds ; for generally 
all the men throughout the country have a tobacco-bag, with a pipe in it, 
hanging at their back ; sometimes they make such great pipes of wood and 
stone, that they are two feet long, with men or beasts carved so big or 
massive, that a man maybe hurt mortally by one of them. * * * They 
have an excellent art to cast our pewter and brass into very neat and arti- 
ficial pipes. * * * I never saw any take so excessively as I have 
seen men in Europe ; and yet excess were more tolerable in them, because 
they want the refreshing beer and wine which God hath vouchsafed 
Europe. 



THE INDIAN TRIBES 77 

* * * From thick warm valleys where they winter, they remove 
a little nearer to their summer fields ; when it is warm spring, they remove 
to their fields, where they plant corn. * * * Sometimes, having fields 
a mile or two, or many miles apart, when the work in one field is over, 
they move their house to the other. If death fall in amongst them, they 
presently remove to a fresh place. If an enemy approach, they remove 
into a thicket or swamp, unless they have some fort to move into. * * * 
Their great remove is from their summer fields to warm and thick wooded 
bottoms for the winter. They are quick, in half a day, yes, sometimes a 
few hours' warning, to be gone and the house up elsewhere, especially if 
they have stakes ready pitched for their mats. * * * "Phg men make 
the poles or stakes, but the women make and set up, take down, order and 
carry the mats and household stuff. 

The sociableness of the nature of man appears in the wildest of them, 
who love society; families, co-habitation, and consociation of houses and 
towns together. * * * 

And as it is their husband's occasion these poor tectonists are often 
troubled like snails, to carry their houses on their backs, sometimes to 
fishing places, other times to hunting places, after that to a planting place, 
where it abides the longest (Woods). 

Their desire of and delight in news is great as in the Athenians, and 
all men, more or less. A stranger that can relate news in their own 
language, they will call Maiiittoo. a God. Their manner is upon any tid- 
ings to sit 'round, double or treble, or more as their numbers be. I have 
seen near a thousand in a round (circle) where English could not well 
near half so many have sat. Every man has his pipe of their tobacco, and 
a deep silence they make and attention they give to the speaker. Many of 
them will deliver themselves either in a relation of news, or in a consulta- 
tion, with very emphatic and great action, commonly an hour, and some- 
times two hours together. 

Canounicus, the old high sachem of the Narragansett Bay (a wise 
and peaceable Prince) once in a solemn oration to me, in a solemn assem- 
bly, using the Indian word Wunnaumivaycan (if he say true) said, "I 
have never suffered any wrong to be offered to the English since they 
landed, nor never will. If the Englishman speaks true, if he means true, 
then shall I go to my grave in peace, and hope that the English and my 
posterity shall live in love and peace together." 

I replied that he had no cause (as I hoped) to question the English- 
men's faithfulness, he having had long experience of their friendliness and 
trustiness. He took a stick and broke into ten pieces and related ten 
instances (laying down a stick for every instance) which gave him cause 
thus to fear and speak. I satisfied him in some matters and presented 
the rest to the English Governors, who, I hope, will be far from giving 
just cause to have barbarians question their faithfulness. 

They have thirteen months in a year, according to the several moons. 
Winter is Papone, Spring is Seqiian, Summer is Ouaqusquam, Autumn is 
Taquonck. If the season is dry, they have great and solemn meetings 
from all parts at one high place, to supplicate their gods and to beg rain 
andi they will continue in this worship ten days, a fortnight, — yes three 
weeks, until rain comes. 



78 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

It is admirable to see wliat paths their naked feet have made in the 
wilderness, in most stony and rocky places. They are generally quick on 
foot, brought up from the breasts to running; their legs being also from 
the womb stretched and bound up in a strange way on their cradle back- 
ward and also annoiiited ; yet have they some that excel ; so that I have 
known many of them run between four score or a hundred miles in a 
summer's day and back within two days. They also practice running 
races, and commonly, in the Summer they delight to go without shoes, 
although they have them hanging at their backs. 

The thick woods and swamps (like the bogs to the Irish) are the 
places of refuge for women and children in war. while the men fight. As 
the country is wondrous full of brooks and rivers, so it also abounds in 
fresh ponds, some of many miles' compass. They are joyful in meeting 
anyone in traveling and will strike fires either with stones or sticks, to 
take tobacco and talk together. * * * j once traveled with near 200, 
who had word of about 700 enemies in the way, yet they all resolved that 
it was a shame for an Indian to be afraid and turn back. 

The Indians have an art of drying chestnuts and so to preserve them 
in their barns for a dainty all the year. They also dry acorns and in case 
of want of corn, by much boiling they make a good dish of them ; some- 
tmies, when corn is plenty, they eat acorns for a novelty. Of walnuts 
they make an excellent oil, good for many uses, but especially for annoint- 
ing their heads. Of the chips of the walnut tree some English in the 
country make excellent beer both for taste, strength and color, and is used 
in offensive opening operations. 

The strawberry is the wonder of all the fruits growing naturally in 
these parts. It is of itself excellent, so that one of the chiefest doctors of 
England was wont to say that God could have made, but God never did 
make a better berry. In some parts where the natives have planted. I 
have many times seen as many as would fill a good ship, within a few 
miles' comi^ass. The Indians bruise them in a mortar, mix them with 
meal and make strawberry bread. * * * The English make good 
wine of grapes and strawberries. * * * Qf white corn, the natives 
have a tradition that a crow brought them at first an Indian grain of 
corn in one ear and an Indian or French bean in another from the great 
God Kautantouwits field in the Southwest, from whence they hold came 
all their corn and beans. The women set or plant, weed and hill, gather 
and barn all the corn and fruits of the field. * * * When a field is 
to be broken up, they have a very loving, sociable, speedy way to dis- 
patch it. All the neighbors, men and women, forty, fifty, a hundred, join 
and come in to help freely. With friendly joining they break up their 
fields, hunt the woods, stop and kill fish in the rivers, it being true with 
t'ttcm as in all the world in the affairs of earth and Heaven: By concord 
little things grow great ; by discord the greatest come to nothing. * * * 

The Indian women use their natural hoes of shells and wood. The 
woman of a family will commonly raise two or three heaps of com. — 
twelve, fifteen or twenty bushels in each heap, which they dry in round, 
broad heaps, * * * covering it with mats at night and opening when 
the sun is hot. 



THE INDIAN TRIBES 79 

Wcchckum, the great "producer" was the sea or ocean. Paiimpca- 
gussit was the Sea-God or Deity which they conceived in the sea. Mis- 
hoon was an Indian boat or canoe made of a pine, oak or chestnut tree. 
I have seen a native go into the woods, with his hatchet, carrying only a 
basket of corn with him and stones to strike fire. When he had felled his 
tree (a chestnut) he made him a little house or shed of the bark, puts fire 
and follows the burning of it with fire, in the middle in many places. His 
corn he boils and hath the brook nearby, and sometimes angles for fishes ; 
but so he continues burning and hewing until lie has within ten or twelve 
days (lying there at his work alone) finished, and (getting hands) 
launched his boat, with which afterward he ventures out to fish in the 
ocean. 

Some of them (boats) will not well carry above three or four, but 
some of them twenty, thirty or forty men. Their own reason has taught 
them to pull off a coat or two and set it up on a small pole, with which 
they will sail before a wind ten or twenty miles. It is wonderful to see 
how they will venture in their canoes and how ( being often upset as I 
have myself been with them) they will swim a mile, yea, two or more, 
safe to land. * * * When sometimes in great danger I have ques- 
tioned safety. They have said to me, "Fear not, if we be overset, I will 
carry you safe to land." 

I have known thirty or forty of their canoes filled with men, and 
near as many more of their enemies in a sea fight. * * * 

They have a two-fold nakedness. First, ordinary and constant, 
when although they have a beast's skin or an English mantle on, yet that 
covers ordinarily but their hinder parts and all the foreparts from top to 
toe (except their secret parts, covered with a little apron, after the pat- 
tern of their and our first parents), I say all else open and naked. 

Their male children go stark naked, and have no apron until they 
come to ten or twelve years of age; their female children, they, in a mod- 
est blush, cover with a little apron of an hand breadth, from birth. 

Their second nakedness is when their m'en often abroad and both 
men and women within doors, leave oiT their beast's skins or English 
clothing and so (excepting their little apron) are wholly naked; yet but 
few of the women but will keep their skin or clothing (though loose) or 
near to them ready to gather it up about them. Custom- has used their 
minds and bodies to it and in such a freedom from any wantonness that 
I have never seen that wantonness amongst them, as with grief I have 
heard of in Europe. They make curiously a coat or mantle of the fairest 
feathers of their turkies, which commonly their old men make and is 
with them as velvet is with us. Shoes and stockings they make of their 
deer skin worn out, which yet being excellently tanned by them, is excel- 
lent for to travel in wet and snow, for it is so tempered with oil that the 
water wrings out. Their tobacco bag bangs to their necks or sticks at their 
girdles. * * * While they are among the English they keep on the 
English apparel. * * * 

The Indians have many Gods ; they have given me the names of 
thirty-seven, which I have, all of which in their solemn worships they 
invocate ; as Kautantoivit, the great South-West God, to whose house 
all souls go and from whom came their corn and beans. * * * They 



8o HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

conceive that there are many Gods or divine powers in the body of a man, 
—in his pulse, liis heart, his lungs. * * * They have a modest relig- 
ious persuasion not to disturb any man in their conscience or worship. 
* * * They believe that the souls of men and women go to the South- 
west ; their great and good men and women to Kautantouwits house, 
where they have hopes as the Turks of carnal joys. Murderers, thieves 
and liars souls wander restless abroad. * * * They have it from 
their fathers that Kautantowit made one man and one woman of a stone, 
which, disliking, he broke them in pieces and made another man and 
woman of a tree, which were the fountains of all mankind. 

A Connecticut Indian who had heard our discourse told the sachem, 
Miantunnomu that souls went up to Heaven or dovm to Hell ; "For," saidi 
he. "our fathers told us that our souls go to the Southwest." 

The Sachem answered, "But how do you know yourself that your 
souls go to the Southwest? Did you ever see a soul go thither? 

The native replied, "When did he (naming myself) see a soul go to 
Heaven or Hell?" 

The Sachem again replied: "He has books and writings and one 
which God himself made concerning men's souls and therefore may well 
know more than we." * * * 

Their government is monarchical, yet at present the chiefest gov- 
ernment is divided between a young sachem, Miantunnomu, and an elder 
sachem, Caunonicus, of about four-score years old, the younger man's 
uncle, and their agreement in the government is remarkable. The old 
sachem will not be offended at what the young sachem doth, and the young 
sachem will not do what he conceives will displease his uncle. 

Sachimmtacommock, a prince's house, is far different from the other 
houses, both in capacity or receit, and also the fineness and quality of 
their mats. * * * 

The sachems, although they have an absolute monarchy over the 
people, will not conclude of ought that concerns all, either laws or sub- 
sidies or wars, tmto which the people are averse, and by gentle persuasion 
cannot be brought. 

I could never discern that excess of scandalous sins among them 
which Europe aboundeth in. Drunkenness and gluttony, generally they 
know not what sins they be. * * * A man will never hear of such 
crimes amongst them of robberies, murders, adulteries, etc., as among the 
English. The most usual custom amongst them in executing punishments 
is for the sachem either to beat or whip or put to death with his own 
hand, to which the common sort most quietly submit, though sometimes 
the sachem sends a secret executioner, one of his chief warriors, to fetch 
off a head, by some unexpected blow of a hatchet, when they have feared 
mutiny by public execution. * * * 

The number of wives is not stinted, yet the chief nation in the coun- 
try, the Xarragansetts, the men have but one wife. Two causes they 
generally allege for their many wives. First, desire of riches, because 
the women bring in all the increase of the field, — the men only fish and 
hunt. Secondly, their long sequestring themselves from their wives after 
conception, until the child is weaned, which with some is long after a 
year old. * * * They commonly abound with children and increase 



THE INDIAN TRIBES 8i 

mightily. * * * j have often known in one-quarter of an hour a 
woman merry in the house, and deUvered and merry again and within 
two days abroad and after four or five days at work. 

Their coin is of two sorts, — one white, which they make of the stem 
or stock of the periwinkle * * * when all the shell is broken ofi. Of 
this sort, six of the small beads are current with the English for a penny. 

The second, is black, inclining to blue, which is made of the shell of 
a fish which some English call Herts, Poqiiahock, and of this sort three 
make an English penny. They that live upon the seaside generally make 
of it and as many make as will. * * * 

In addition to an account of the manners and traditions of the 
Indians Mr. Williams has left us in "The Key" nearly two thousand words 
and phrases which he recorded as in current use among the tribes that he 
had dealings with. Wampum, sachem, squaw, samp, pappoose, hawk, 
tautog are Anglicized Indian words. 

Although the Indiian tribes occupied the landis of the Western Con- 
tinent at the time of the first European diiscoveries, their titles to their 
lands were not recognized as legal tenure. The sovereigns who sent out 
expenditions of discovery laid claim to all the lands on which' their flag 
was planted" by the discoverer, the Europeans were agreed in holding 
that the whole earth' belongedi to the followers, of Christ, and that non- 
ChristianiS had no rights to the soil or tiheir own bodies. They believed 
and acted on the belief that savages had no rights of property or person ; 
hence their property might be taken or destroyed and the people reduced 
to slavery, on Christian principles. In consequence, John Cabot's dis- 
covery of the American coast gave the English sovereign, as was claimed, 
the right to own and occupy the lands in the possession of our Indian 
tribes in and about Rhode Island. To the religiously devout of the fif- 
teenth and sixteenth centuries any treatment accorded black men or red 
men might be assumed "For the glory of God." All early grants and pat- 
ents for Colonial reservations made no reference to Indian land titles, 
entirely ignoring their occupation and ownership. This remarkable 
assumption of territorial ownership, based' on discovery of an hitherto 
unknown country was wholly unjust, and had it not been modified by the 
subsequent acts of the settlers, by real purchases of the natives, even for 
childish considerations, much trouble must have ensued. Many of the 
tribes were migratory, claiming no attachment to any special territory for 
a succession of years, while others dwelt for long periods on lands, which 
their industry had cleared, on which they had built comfortable houses 
and from which tilney raised Indian corn, squashes, beans, tobacco and 
other crops. The Narragansetts and the Wampanoags, of the Narna- 

R 1-5 



82 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

gansett Basin, belonged to the latter class, and justly claimed by right of 
long occupation and use, the lands on which they lived and over which 
they hunted. Canonkus had as full right to his preserve for game, and 
better, than piany a landed lord of England or Gemiany : their rights in 
lands were as real as their rights in clothing and shelter. But these rights 
were communal, not individual. There is no evidence that any one Indian 
laid claim to any piece of land as its exclusive owner, while his right of 
occupancy and use was a matter of adjustm^ent iu the tribal allotments'. It 
is probable that the tribes, in their dealings with the wliites as to lands, 
held the same idea of white ownership, that it was communal and not indi- 
vidual, and still more, it may be assumed that in the gifts or sales of lands 
to the colonial settlers, they believed that they still held the right to roam 
and hunt at will, over the territory so transferred, without committing 
trespass. 

How much the misuTiderstanding between' the settlers and the natives 
had to do in originating t'he conflicts and wars which devastated the early 
New England and Camadian settlements we shall never know. Certain it 
is that in the settlement of the Colony of Pennsylvania, a series of con- 
ferences was held between William Penn, the founder, and the Delaware 
and other Indian tribes, and a treaty signed, of peace and friendship, 
which, says Voltaire, was the only treaty "never sworn to and never 
broken." In the later history of our State and general government, the 
rights of the tribes to tribal landis has been conceded and whenever a 
tribe has been willing to make a domicile, lands have been allotted on the 
grounds of certain undefinable aboriginal rights, thereby establishing the 
just principle of Indian land ownership. The State of Oklahoma is a 
monumental testimony to our modern recognition of pre-historic savage 
claims to our national territory. A full measure of civilization is the 
incoming reward of a late, but righteous regard for the rights of men, 
even though to an Indian. It may be stated, to the honor of the New 
England Colonies, whatever their patents may have granted as their ter- 
ritorial rigiits, that the early settlers, honestly and honorably, purchased 
and extinguished all Indian claims to lands, in accordance with English 
law and custom. In 1629, the Masisachusetts Bay Company instructed 
their agent, Ivlr. John Endicott, to search out Indian claimants and satisfy 
their reasonable demands "that we may avoid the least scruples of intru- 
sion." Those persons who received allotments of lands from the company 
were expected to satisfy the Indians and it is safe to say that not a foot of 
soil in Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay, or Rhodie Island Colonies, were 
held in violation of Indian rights. 



CHAPTER V 



CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 




ROGER WILLIAMS LAXDIXG AT WHAT-CHKKR ROCK, SEEKOXK RI\ER 

June. 1626 




ROGER \V1LLL\MS REIURXLXG 'I'O PROVIUEXGI': WITH 

PATENT, 164-1 

From Painting in Providence County Court House 



CHAPTER V. 

CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 

In 1894, Mr. Oscar S. Straus, an educated and able American Jew 
of New York, wrote a treatise on Roger Williams. He closes his Preface 
with this pregnant sentence: "He was the pioneer of Religious Libert\. 
His whole life throbbed zvith that principle, upon which as a basis he ivas 
the first to establish a political community. The influence of his 'lively 
experiment' I will not attempt to measure. He was the apostle of the 
American system of a free Church in a free State." This is a bold decla- 
ration and challenges the most careful and thorough historical study as 
related to Rhode Island history. Religious liberty is the inherent right 
of an individual to believe and worship according to one's conscience 
and without restraint, Mr. Straus cannot make the founder of Provi- 
dence the pioneer of that sort of liberty. The very stones of the street 
would deny such a statement, to say nothing of the voices of thousands 
and tens of thousands of men and women, who, during the centuries 
preceding and following the Reformation, had sealed their belief with 
their lives. The Jewish faith has been during all the centuries since Abra- 
ham and Moses the great expositor and defender of religious liberty. It 
^ would waste words to attempt to prove that Robert Browne was a pioneer 
of religious liberty when in 1584. in England, he wrote "they (the magis- 
trates) may doe nothing concerning the church, but onelie civilities, and 
as civile magistrates; that is, they have not that authoritie over the 
church, as to be Prophetes or Priests, or Spiritual Kings, as they are 
Magistrates over the same ; but onelie to rule the common wealth in all 
outwarde justice, to maintaine the right welfare and honor thereof with 
outwarde power, bodily punishment & civill forcing of men." Lets have 
done with all such unscholarly statements that Roger Williams was the 
pioneer of religious liberty. On the Continent — for the Waldenses were 
four hundred and fifty years ahead of him, and the Christian Church was 
sixteen hundred years in advance. Sir Thomas More died in the faith 
of Religious Liberty, a century before Roger Williams was banished 
from the Bay; and the compact of the Mayflower passengers was signed 
while Roger Williams was a school boy in his early teens. It is not his- 
torically true that Roger Williams was a pioneer of Religious Liberty. 
It would be difficult to prove that he even used the term, "Religious Lib- 
erty." He did use the phrases, "liberty of conscience," "distressed in 
conscience," and like terms, — all of which have a far different meaning, 
as we shall see in the historic revelation of the early years of the town 
of Providence. 



86 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

The more significant part of Mr. Straus' statement declares that 
"Religious Liberty was the basis of the pohtical community which Mr. 
Williams established at Providence." Was this an historic fact? Let us 
see. 

Rhode Island is the name of one of the United States, the smallest 
in area, the greatest in historic fame. Its present legal title is The 
St.\te of Rhode Isl.^nd and Providence Pl.\ntations, — the names of 
the two Colonies that united to form the Federal State. 

The name Rhode Island, or Isle of Rhodes, was first applied in 1644 
to the Island, called by the Narraganselt Indians, Aquidneck. Its earliest 
political value was the Colonial name of the two towns, Portsmouth and 
Newport, in distinction from the Colony of Providence Plantations, at 
the head of the Narragansett Bay. In this discussion, the name Rhode 
Island will be restricted to its early Colonial application as adopted by the 
General Court of Election of the two towns, on the 13th of March, 1644, 

It is my purpose to show that the two towns, Portsmouth and New- 
port, occupying at that time the whole territory of the Island of Rhode 
Island and constituting the original Colony of Rhode Island, are entitled 
to the honor and distinction of Primacy in the establishment of a pure 
Democracy, coupled with Soul Freedom in a well ordered Civil Magis- 
tracy. 

The physical area of this Commonwealth of high ideals was probably 
the smallest of the historic states of the world, its extreme length not 
exceeding sixteen miles and its breadth not over five miles. Its location 
on the Atlantic Coast line and its extensive landlocked harbor, gave its 
early planters an advantage in primitive commerce and fisheries which 
proved of great economic value. This Island, it may be noted, was first 
seen through European discovery, by John Verrazzano, who, skirting 
the New England Coast, in 1524, entered and explored the lower Narra- 
gansett Bay, calling the harbor and Island Refugio. 

It is an interesting fact that the most notable "livelie experiment" in 
the practical application of the doctrines of civil and religious liberty in 
America or even in the world, should have been made in Rhode Island, — 
the smallest political unit on the Western Hemisphere. Its microscopic 
size and great water area, as compared with the land, would seem to pre- 
clude the possibility of applying great principles of government and 
public policy to a sufficiently large body of people to secure a constitu- 
ency large enough or discrete enough to try out any great question to any 
wise or ultimate conclusions. There were, however, in the case of the 
early history of this little Colony, some peculiar facts that seem to upset 
any preconceived theory as to population or physical area. 

The first fact is a physical one and has a large value in favor of 



CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 87 

littleness. It is this, — Narragansett Bay and its tributaries trisect the 
area, separating the original settlements one from the other, thereby giv- 
ing to each an opportunity, as an independent entity, to work out its own 
problems in its own individual way. Portsmouth and Newport were 
isolated on the Island of Aquidneck, twenty miles from Providence and 
fifteen from Warwick, the fourth of the Colonial towns. When long 
journeys in boats, on rough waters, propelled by the manual of arms, are 
the only means of communication, men and women are liable to stay at 
home and in a wilderness country do a considerable amount of thinking on 
their new life, its conditions and how to make them more tolerable. 

Another fact appears in the personnel of the founders of the four 
Rhode Island towns. It is this — a great variety of types of men appear in 
these early settlements of Colonial founders. Some were mere adven- 
turers, joining a migration with little of superior motives or large ex- 
pectancy. Some were land hungry and saw in the Narragansett Country 
abundant areas for each householder, like the landed estates of Old 
England. Some were ambitious to make homes for permanent family 
life. Some sought freedom from civil restraint, — some an asylum for 
larger freedom than was granted in Fatherland and a sweeter expression 
of it than was exercised in Puritan Boston or even in Pilgrim Plymouth. 

Our definition of a State is a political community, organized under a 
distinct government, recognized and conformed to by the people as su- 
preme. It is essential to a State that there be some sort of civil govern- 
ment accepted as valid by its members, who live in a common region or 
locality. Growing out of the family it has a natural basis in man's social 
nature and relations, and develops a form decided by its constituency, 
and a legal basis and standard of ultimate appeal, in essential rights and 
justice. 

The ideas of the men of the first half of the seventeenth century, 
born of English, French or German stock, were no less broad and sub- 
stantial. I'lymouth, Massachusetts Bay and Connecticut Colonies were 
founded on these essential foundations, guaranteed by Royal Charters. 
The civil State was composed of a body of men and women, in general 
agreement in matters of faith and polity, with an intelligent understanding 
of the relations of the individual to civil society. 

This community of persons adopts a charter, compact, or constitu- 
tion, embracing the basic principles of the inchoate state, with conditions 
and limitations as to freemanship and citizenship, thereby establishing an 
official organization, — the State, — with all the functions and officials neces- 
sary for the institution of orderly government. This compact also defines 
the quality of the government, — be it Monarchy or Democracy, — and the 
various needs of local government, that conditions may require. It is of 



88 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

the utmost consequence that rules and laws be established for protecting 
the right of life, liberty, property and reputation, and the immediate choice 
and installation of competent officials to attend to the execution of the 
laws, adopted by the body politic. 

These are some of the fundamental ideas of a State, — the germs of a 
Commonwealth, — of the American type. In our body politic of Rhode 
Island we are to assume the founding of a Democratic state, with abso- 
lute freedom of opinion and action in religious concerns. In our study of 
the state founded by Dr. John Clarke and his associates we shall find all 
the constituents above enumerated, incorporated into the institutions, 
laws, civil polity and administrative operations of the towns and Colony 
of Rhode Island, on Aquidneck, years in advance of any other body politic 
in the world. 

/ Liberty is a very old word. It is found in all languages, but with 
different local meanings. Thomas Jefferson framed the sentiment in our 
Declaration of Independence, that all men "are endozvcd by their Creator 
zvith certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the 
pursuit of happiness." The free exercise of the right of liberty has been 
greatlv abridged in the life of the human race, as history records it, and, 
in multitudes of instances, both life and liberty have been ruthlessly 
trampled under foot and destroyed. The weak have been made the 
bond-servants of the strong, and body, mind and spirit have been en- 
slaved to satisfy one or another of the ambitions or passions of the master- 
ful classes among men. The story of "Man's inhumanity to man" is the 
burden of History. The shackles that have fettered the limbs have been 
oppressive and galling, but have never been so degrading and humiliating 
as those which have bound the larger freedom of speech and of worship. 
The processes, by which people of various tongues have obtained 
larger and ever-increasing measures of liberty, constitute the warp and 
woof of History. The struggle for body and soul-freedom has been ages 
long, — at one point and period successful, at others going down in defeat, 
but all the while the spirit of liberty has never been vanquished. 

"For Freedom's battle, once begun. 
Bequeathed by bleeding sire to son, 
Though baffled oft, is ever won." 

It is not the motive of the author nor the purpose of this Story to 
do more than give a single chapter of this world contest, — the culmina- 
tion, in the later stages of the Evolution of Civilization, of two great mani- 
festations of liberty. Civil and Religious, and their union in a modern 
Democratic state. Here and there among men, had each of the principles 
found expression and partial illustration — the result of vision by men and 
social orders. Prior to the English Revolution of the Seventeenth Cen- 



CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 89 

tury, however, nowhere on the face of the earth and among civilized men, 
did civil and soul-Hberty jointly exist. It's first clear, full, deliberate, 
organized and permanent establishment in the world can now be distinctly 
traced to the Colony of Rhode Island, on the island of Aquidneck, in 
Narragansctt Bay, under the leadership and inspiration of Dr. John 
Clarke, the true Founder. 

In the evolution of modern Democracy, including soul-liberty, the 
three great nations of Western Europe, — Germany, France and England, 
— have been the chief actors, — Germany in the earlier stages, England in 
the later and France in both. Four events have signally advanced its 
progress. The first, and probably the most significant and far-reaching, 
was the first complete translation of the Bible into the English tongue, 
from the \^n!gate, by Wyclif, about 1382. It is impossible, in our day, 
to appreciate the ardent reception of the Old and New Testament Scrip- 
tures by the Western mind and heart. Hebrew history and theology were 
incorporated bodily into English thought and speech and, in the Puritan 
Period, Hebrew nomenclature was almost universally adopted, thus re- 
storing patriarchal relations and associations in family life. English 
literature was enriched by the stories of the Hebrew Captivity and 
Mosaic Deliverance. The Drama recited the heroic scenes of the Penta- 
teuch, and Psalmody versified, in stumbling meter, the songs of Miriam, 
Deborah and Ruth and the Psalms of David. 

The Hebrew Republic, under Moses as its great lawgiver, was a type 
for a modern state, while the teachings of Jesus and Paul taught the 
brotherhood of men, the fatherhood of God, and the standardization of 
human society on the basis of equality and fraternity, — the corner stones 
of Democracy. The Bible was the first and greatest guide the Western 
mind had ever had to lead it into the path of Liberty, with Jesus as its 
teacher. 

The second great event in order of time, was the invention of the 
printing press, in Germany, about 1440. Through its agency in multi- 
plying books, — especially the Bible,- — the Western world began to learn 
to read, in order that it might, for itself, understand the lively oracles of 
God. Bibles and religious books soon became cheap enough to be the 
property of every family. The hungry fed on the Bread of Life. The 
thirsty drank from the fountains of Life. 

Martin Luther (1483-1546) was one of the mighty forces that recon- 
structed church and state in Germany and England, and more than that, 
as a bold advocate of reforms, temporal and spiritual, he set an example 
of independent thinking and utterance most salutary for his time. The 
century, from 1450 to 1550, was remarkable for a great awakening of 
German and Anglo-Saxon to ethical and spiritual truth, and in the open- 



90 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

ing of the luinian mind to freedom of thought and expression. It was 
the century of Discovery. Columbus gave Spain the sceptre of Western 
domain. Cabot enlarged the bounds of the New World on both North- 
ern and Southern horizons, while Verazzano, an Italian, sailing under the 
French flag, explored the Northern Atlantic Coasts and penetrated the 
recesses of New York and Narragansett Bays. 

While these European navigators were opening the doors of a New 
World, in the West, Copernicus, of German birth, the navigator of the 
Heavens, discovered and announced to the world the laws of planetary 
and stellar motion, — a new Heavens, — the correlate of the new Earth 
of Columbus and Americus Vespucius. 

With the fall of Constantinople, in 1453, Greek scholars fled to the 
West. A revival in letters, art and philosophy sprang up in Italy, France, 
England and Germany. South of the Alps, art flourished in the works 
of Michael Angelo, Titian, Correggio, Da Vinci and Raphael. North of 
the Alps, science, philosophy, social order, free institutions, law and 
religion, gave character to the "New Learning." The age brought forth 
Sir Thomas More, Colet, Calvin, Knox, Melancthon. Zwingli and Sebas- 
tian Castellio, 1515-1563, — the first great champion of a "free conscience," 
and of "Toleration in Religious Belief." 

The "New Learning" of the schools and universities of England was 
passionately seized by the English mind. Students flocked to the seats of 
learning at Oxford, Cambridge and London, or, in humbler ways, found 
in the new literature of the day, satisfaction and delight in the revelations 
of ancient Greek or Latin philosophy, law, religion and government. The 
last two subjects especially occupied the thoughts of men, inasmuch as 
absolutism on the part of royalty had stirred the people into a conscious 
revolt against arbitrary and vicious acts in government, and the teachings 
of the Scriptures had liberated the minds of the people from the ignorance 
and superstitions of the established church. 

In this age of "Wonderful Awakening" the Puritan was born. This 
new man was born Catholic and Protestant. As a Catholic, he accepted 
the great doctrines of the church as taught by the Fathers. His faith in 
God was complete. His belief in Justification, in Sanctification and in the 
mediatorial Sacrifice, could not be cliallenged. As a Protestant, he con- 
ceived the individual freedom of worship and the rights of the governed 
in the afTairs of state. Magna Charta had a new meaning, in the light of 
the teachings of Jesus. The freeman and the free state became mental 
possibilities in the sixteenth century of English history. It was in this 
period of mental, spiritual and political agitation, the last half of this 
sixteenth century, — that brilliant epoch of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, 
— that the American Democracy also was born. This remarkable activity 



CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 91 

was both destructive and constructive. It destroyed absolutism in Church 
and State. It constructed a fabric of popular government, in which every 
man was both sovereign and subject in matters temporal and spiritual. 
The absolute freedom of the English subject in religious concernments 
was then set as the corner stone of a new political and spiritual edifice. 

The Rev. Robert Browne, founder of the Brownists, now the Con- 
gregationalists (1584), thus defined the relationship of the church and 
state. "They (the magistrates) may doe nothing concerning the church, 
but onlie ciuill, and as ciuill magistrates; that is, they haue not that 
authoritie oner the church as to be prophetes or priestes, or spiritual! 
kings, as they are magistrates ouer the same ; but onlie to rule the com- 
mon wealth in all outward justice, to maintaine the right welfare and 
honor thereof with outward power, bodily punishment and ciuill forcing 
of men." This is a clear, bold utterance of a free conscience of a free 
church in a sovereign state. Again he writes : "Goe to, therefore, and the 
outward power and ciuill forcings let us leaue to the magistrates : to rule 
the common wealth in all outwarde justice, belongeth to them: but let 
the church rule in spiritual wise, and not in wordlie manner : by a liuelie 
lawe preached, and not by a ciuill law written." "For it is the conscience 
and not the power of man that will driue us to seeke the Lordes King- 
dom." It is very obvious that Robert Browne taught the independence of 
church and state and in that doctrine taught also full liberty of the individ- 
ual conscience in religion. This doctrine was also taught in a "Plea for 
Liberty of Conscience" by Leonard Busher, 1614, and by John Murton 
in his two treatises against "Persecution for Religion as Contrary to 
Divine and Human Testimonies," 1620. 

Briefly stated, the situation of afTairs in England, as related to civil 
and religious matters at the opening of the seventeenth century (1603), 
was as follows : The seventeenth century opened in the midst of the 
brilliant literary and philosophical period of English hi.story, inaugurated 
by Queen Elizabeth, who had still further distinguished herself by a con- 
stant and firm control over the English church and state. James the 
First, ruler of England from 1603 to 1625, asserted the theory of the 
divine right of kingship and episcopacy, in no degree relaxing the laws on 
the statute books as to Puritan nonconformity. In 1607, a body of liberal 
Puritans called Separatists, emigrated' to Holland and, in 1620, constituted 
the Plymouth Colony, which was chartered by James to establish a gov- 
ernment on the shores of Massachusetts Bay, — the first of the New Eng- 
land colonies founded on Democracy in government. 

England was divided politically into two hostile camps, — Royalist and 
Puritan. The Royalist was loyal to the King and the Church. He saw 
in both the safe-guard of all he held dear. He was a reactionist, not a 



92 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

statesman. The heritage of Old England was to him of greater value 
than any jiossible future could be. The King, the Court, the Church, the 
Prelacy, were sacred organisms of God's making. He hated the words 
Freedom, Democracy, Toleration, as devices of the Devil, and would 
persecute and expel from the Kingdom as demons, all who cherished 
them. He belonged to the Aristocracy of learning, wealth, chivalry, lux- 
ury, and the love for woman. Religion was to him a form, not a sacra- 
ment. Life had no great ambitions. Death had no terrors for Cavalier 
or Red Cross Knight. 

"The Puritans," says Macaulay, "were the most remarkable body of 
men, perhaps, which the world has ever produced." Religion was their 
chief concern and business. It was an integral element of their daily 
life. Political matters were religious matters. The liberal Puritan stood 
for freedom in personal rights, freedom in civil concerns, freedom in 
faith. The Bible was his guide and teacher in things temporal and things 
spiritual. Samuel Gorton, one of the founders of Warwick, writing of 
himself, says, "/ yearned for a country where I could be free to worship 
God according to what the Bible taught me, as God enabled me to under- 
it. I left my native country (England) to enjoy liberty of conscience in 
respect to faith toward God and for no other end." Tliis "yearning" was 
the possession of the body of English Puritans, not the exclusive exercise 
by a few. The right to worship God as conscience dictated was a soul 
right, by creation, — not man-given. No royal edict proclaimed it. No 
royal edict could curtail it. The new religion and the teachings of the 
new Bible taught it. Jesus was its great expounder in the Gospels and 
Paul in the Epistles. The great body of martyrs, who suffered at the 
stake, bore testimony to their love for spiritual liberty. Of great English- 
men, standing in the forefront of the battle, in defense of civil and soul 
freedom, were John Hampden, gentleman. Sir Harry Vane, scholar, 
Oliver Cromwell, soldier and statesman. These great souls were types 
of the great historic life, in which they were leaders, in the contest for 
soul liberty on English soil. The Puritan age of England and America, 
the seventeenth centur>', was an age of great religious faith, an age of 
heroic independences, an age of over-masterful longing for freedom of 
worship and the severance of the church and secular governments. The 
individualistic man had come to demand his rightful kingdom and king- 
ship. The crown was the rightful property of the real Koenig, — the man 
of kingly character. The tragic end of Charles the First proved to the 
world that the king could do wrong to his subjects, and that the sacred- 
ness of the regal throne was no cloak to conceal the crime and no barrier 
to protect from its punishment. The elevation of the great commoner, 
Cromwell, was added proof that the men behind the guns and the ploughs 



CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 93 

were the real rulers of the state. Out of all that political, social, civil, 
religious unrest has come stable, constitutional government, a just respect 
for law, a material prosperity unbounded and an expanding civilization 
which dominates not only the North American continent, but wields a 
powerful and a moulding influence in old-world governments. 

Of those Pilgrims who came to New England, Mrs. Hemans asks, 

"What sought they thus afar? 

Bright jewels of the mine? 

The wealth of seas 

The spoils of war? 

They sought a faith's pure shrine. 

".Aye, call it holy ground 

The place where first they trod, 
They have left unstained what there they found 
Freedom to worship God." 

The fact cannot be too strongly emphasized, that the cardinal doc- 
trines of the Puritan body in England were the overturning of arbitrary 
kingly authority, a large measure of freedom for the average man in civil 
affairs and conscience liberty for all men. For these and their allied 
privileges, they stood as the defenders in the great struggle with Charles 
I. All believed that a man's conscience as to religion was not subject to 
the laws of the State, as his conduct was. All thought that a man ought 
to be free to worship God as he pleased, provided he did not interfere 
with the rights of his neighbors. All believed in "a church without a 
Bishop, a state without a King." All migrated or were banished "on 
account of their dangerous and pernicious doctrine," so that when they 
came to dwell on the shores of a New World they were all in a true sense 
exiles for liberty's sake. 

Historical writers are practically agreed that in Rhode Island, civil 
and religious liberty were first established and permanently maintained. 
As there may be a confusion of thought as to what constitutes religious 
liberty and its pseudonyms, conscience liberty, soul liberty, etc., a brief 
discussion thereon follows: 

The terms Freedom. Liberty, Religious Liberty or Soul Liberty and 
Liberty of Conscience are in frequent use by the writers of the sixteenth 
and seventeenth centuries. The first two are generic and synonymous. 
The others are particular, relating to specific and well defined areas of 
thought and experience. Liberty of Conscience is a broad term, inclusive 
of all matters in the domain of Ethics. It is subjective rather than ob- 
jective. It is a state, not a relation. It rests on the inalienable right of 
belief or faith and is another name for convictions or the moral sense. 
Our convictions are inward possessions, and, if unexpressed by word or 
deed, are beyond the knowledge of other than the possessor and beyond 



94 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

question by any. My conscience may say there is no God and that I am 
under no obligation to a Supreme Being. It may deny the immortality 
of the Soul or the reward of right action and the punishment of wrong 
doing. My conscience may approve of the liquor traffic. It may lead me 
to oppose organized government and the ordinances of the civil magis- 
trate. I am at full liberty to hold and cherish any or all of these con- 
victions. If I give no expression to these ideas. I am safe from criticism 
or restraint. I may be a thief, an adulterer, a murderer, in thought, motive 
or conviction, but I am not amenable to the law unless I steal or take the 
life of a fellow. My conscience may tell me that I ought to drown my 
child to appease the Gods and save my own soul, but society cannot ques- 
tion my moral judgment until I commit the act or teach the doctrine. 
This is liberty as to conscience. 

But what will civil society say to-day, if I utter my convictions in the 
ears of my fellow men? It will say this. If my beliefs as to civic prin- 
ciples and policies run counter to the majority of the society around me 
and are subversive of the civil organism — the state, — I am liable and 
justly responsible to such society for judgment on the same. If the state , 
regards my opinions as subversive of its principles and a threat to its 
life, it would be strangely delinquent in its obligations to its founders and 
foundations, not to restrain my acts and the public expression of my 
opinions, however honest and conscientious I may be in their expression. 
Differences of opinion as to human conduct, laws and civil administration, 
must and always will exist, but such differences among men are often only 
differing viewpoints that do not reach the domain of conscience per se, 
much less the narrower but higher realm in matters of personal religion 
and worship where the religious conscience holds sway. As between man 
and man, individual right of conscience or the moral sense is supreme 
within the bounds of reason. As between man and society and civil 
government a limitation must be made as to authority and a sharp line of 
demarcation drawn as to two supreme facts, — ^the human soul and God. 
These — the soul and God — live apart, in a superior world, under higher 
than human laws, within the most sacred Holy of Holies of man's being. 
In this relationship, absolute freedom of action and of sentiment must 
exist, and over it civil authority can have no legitimate control. Man 
can say to the magistrate, "Hitherto shalt thou come but no farther." 
Soul-liberty and worship is man's castle, which no human being, no court 
of justice, no magistrate, no law, no civil state, no high potentate can 
enter with impunity, without human consent. God, the soul, worship, 
natural and revealed religion, faith, prayer, all spiritual beliefs as to time 
and eternity are the subject matter of soul-liberty. This is the realm of 
Religious Liberty, Soul Liberty, Spiritual Liberty. With Madame Roland 



CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 95 

we cry out, "O Liberty, Liberty, how many crimes are committed in thy 
name!" Liberty cannot descend to the realm of license to justify illegal 
or immoral acts. The Decalogue is recognized as a Divine Instrument. 
I cannot set up conscience liberty in justification of Sabbath-breaking, 
profanity or adultery. The State licenses the sale of intoxicants. I dis- 
believe in the policy and disclaim i)articipation in the legislation, thereby 
keeping a clean conscience in the full enjoyment of my civic liberty. Pub- 
lic policy is state-craft wherein, in a Democracy, the majority-rule becomes 
the law of all the people who accept its protection and its provisions. 
The civic conscience may enter its protest or approval, but in no sense is 
the doctrine of Soul or Religious Liberty traversed. 

John Locke ( 1632-1704), in his "Letters on Toleration," restricts and 
defines "The Jurisdiction of the Magistrate, excluding it from the regu- 
lation of public worship or the control of religious beliefs, except so far 
as such worship or beliefs may interfere with the ends of civil govern- 
ment." "The provinces of a Church and a Commonwealth are distinct 
and separate and easily well defined. The bounds are absolute." "As to 
speculative opinions, tenets and practices of any religious community, the 
civil magistrate has no right of restraint." Locke declared, "No opinions 
contrary to human society, or to those moral rules which are necessary to 
human society, are to be tolerated by the magistrate." "Religious ortho- 
dox persons, who claim for themselves any peculiar privileges or power 
above others in civil concernments, or who, upon any pretense of religion 
or morality, challenge any manner of authority over others not of their 
faith, have no right to be tolerated by the magistrate as those that will 
not own and teach the duty of tolerating all men in matters of mere 
religion." "Those are not to be tolerated who deny the being of God. 
Promises, covenants and oaths which are the bonds of human society, 
can have no hold on an atheist. The taking away of God, though but 
even in thought, dissolves all." "Liberty is the power a man has to do or 
fbrbear doing any particular action, according as its doing or forbearing 
has the actual preference in his mind." 

The Lord Proprietors of North Carolina, in 1663, thus defined Re- 
ligious Liberty for its citizens: "We will grant, in as ample manner as 
undertakers shall desire, freedom and liberty of conscience in all religious 
or spiritual things and to be kept inviolably with them, we having power 
in our charter to do so." This Declaration was modified by the charter 
of Charles the Second, 1665. "No person or persons unto whom such 
liberty shall be given (i. c, who cannot join the Church of England) shall 
be any way molested, punished, disquieted, or called in question, for any 
dififerences in opinion, or practice in matters of religious concernments, 
who do not actually disturb the civil peace of the province, county or 



96 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

colony that they shall make their abode in. But all and every such person 
and persons may, from time to time, and at all times, freely and quietly, 
have and enjoy his and their judgments and consciences, in matters of 
religion, throughout all the said province or colony, they behaving them- 
selves ])eaceably, and not using this liberty to licentiousness, nor to the 
civil injury or outward disturbance of others." 

The following limitations were declared in 1669: "No man can be a 
freeman of Carolina or have an estate or habitation within it that doth not 
acknowledge a God ; and that God is publicly and solemnly worshipped." 
"No person whatsoever shall speak anything in their religious assembly 
irreverently or seditiously of the government, the governors, or of state 
matters." 

A revision of the North Carolina constitution in 1876 thus defines 
Religious Liberty: "All men have a natural and unalienable right to 
worship Almighty God according to the dictates of their own conscience 
and no hunian authority should in any case whatsoever interfere with the 
right of conscience." As the Carolinas were founded by John Locke and 
his Disciples it is of interest to note the interpretation given to Religious 
Liberty by that school of philosophy. 

The Bill of Rights of Massachusetts, adopted in 1780, defines and 
limits Religious Liberty as follows: 

Art. I. All men are born free and equal, and have certain natural, 
essential, and unalienable rights ; among which may be reckoned the right 
of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties; that of acquiring, 
possessing, and protecting property; in fine, that of seeking and obtaining 
their safety and happiness. 

Art. II. It is the right as well as the duty of all men in society, pub- 
licly, and at stated seasons to worship the Supreme Being, the great Cre- 
ator and Preserver of the Universe. And no subject shall be hurt, mo- 
lested, or restrained in his person, liberty, or estate, for worshipping God 
in the manner and season most agreeable to the dictates of his own con- 
science: or for his religious profession of sentiments: provided he doth 
not disturb the public peace, or obstruct others in their religious worship. 

The Maryland Constitution of 1776 is quite in keeping with the 
statutes of other states: 

Art. 36. That as it is the duty of every man to worship God in such 
manner as he thinks most acceptable to Him, all persons are equally en- 
titled to protection in their religious liberty: wherefore no person ought, 
by any law to be molested in his person or estate, on account of his relig- 
ious persuasion or profession, or for his religious practice, unless, under 
the color of religion, he shall disturb the good order, peace or safety of 
the state, or shall infringe the laws of morality, or injure others in their 
natural, civil or religious rights. 



CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 97 

A careful study of these constitutional provisions as to Religious 
Liberty shows that full protection is assured to the citizenship in matters 
of religious faith and worship, with the proviso that no person can, "under 
the color of religion," or right of Conscience, "disturb the good order, 
peace or safety of the State," or "injure others in their natural, civil or 
religious rights." By these fixed standards we may measure the claims 
of those who may worthily and rightfully wear the honor of Founders of 
Religious Liberty. 

In law, "liberty is freedom from all restraints except such as the 
lawful rights of others prescribe," "Civil Liberty implies the subjection 
of the individual members of a community to laws imposed by the com- 
munity as a whole: but it does not imply the assent of each individual to 
these laws." "Religious or soul liberty is the right of freely adopting and 
professing opinions on religious subjects, and of worshiping or refraining 
from worship, according to the dictates of conscience, without external 
control," These definitions from The Century Dictionary will be our 
tests for determining the quality of the government established, the pol- 
icies pursued, and the administrations of the social, civil, judicial and 
religious institutions. 

It must be understood that "opinions" and "conscience liberty" do 
not fall within the province of civil or religious liberty. Both are loose 
terms and admit of the grossest license and immoralities. It is well known 
that lewdness, licentiousness and adultery stalked abroad in the early 
years of Colonial life under the title of "personal liberty;" that the wild- 
est political vagaries were styled "opinions," and criminals of all sorts 
justified corruption in purpose and practise on the claim that "conscience 
scruples" approved and justified their doings. In fact every crime pos- 
sible within the scope of the Decalogue has found its defence in "liberty 
of conscience," and "no rogue ever felt the halter draw with a good opin- 
ion of the law." A "distressed conscience" has often made atonement for 
very black crimes. Let us take good care not to confound "religious lib- 
erty" with its arch-enemy "conscience liberty." "Soul liberty" and a "dis- 
tressed conscience," are in no way related. Their differences are as wide 
as the poles. What we are now seeking to determine is where, when and 
by whom were Civil Liberty and Religious Liberty, as defined, first estab- 
lished and fully maintained in our Commonwealth, 

In the settlement of the original New England Colonies the treatment 
of religious differences was a matter of grave concern. In the Bay Col- 
ony, a freeman, a man having the privilege of voting and holding office, 
must be a member of the Puritan Church, The same was true of the 
Connecticut Colony at Hartford, a child of the Bay Colony, led by Rev, 
Thomas Hooker, who, with Rev. John Cotton, was the author of the 

R 1—7 



98 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

"Summe of Church Discipline." In Plymouth Colony, "no erroneous per- 
son" could be admitted as an inhabitant or sojourner. By "erroneous 
person" was meant such as held "damnable heresies inconsistent with the 
faith of the Gospel," as a denial of the Trinity or any person therein, of 
the Deity of Christ, of His full satisfaction of the Divine Justice, His 
resurrection, ascension, second personal coming, the resurrection of the 
dead, belief in consubstantiation, transubstantiation, giving Divine adora- 
tion to any creature or any other anti-Christian doctrine, a denial of the 
magistrates' powers to punish evil doers, a denial of the Sabbath, speak- 
ing reproachfully of the Churches of Christ." On various controversial 
points, as baptism, pedobaptism, church discipline, full liberty was granted. 
The same general limitations as to the qualifications of inhabitants existed 
in Massachusetts Bay Colony. From the dreadful turmoils and bitter 
persecution of sects and sectaries in England they had crossed the sea. 
They sincerely sought to live as Christian men and women should. Tol- 
eration to them meant the undisturbed possession and exercise of their 
religious principles and activities. The Boston Puritan of the seventeenth 
century had no use for a Baptist, a Quaker, a Churchman, a Roman Cath- 
olic, or an infidel; their presence on the soil of the Bay was a menace 
to the peace and the solidarity of the Puritan faith. Errors in religious 
belief, as rated by Puritan standards, were adjudged treasonable to the 
Commonwealth. Cotton Mather was the expositor of early New Eng- 
land orthodoxy, in its right to rest undisturbed in its new estate, as against 
all disturbing agencies. And here it must be conceded that the threat- 
ened dangers of heretical opinions, as interpreted by the Bay settlers was 
not so much in the possession and ordinary exercise of the divergent and 
conflicting views as in the excesses in conduct and in proselytism which 
were incident to the age and the controversialists who filled it with their 
Babel jargon. The Church and the Commonwealth both were the Ark 
of the Covenant of the Puritan. An unholy disturbance of the sacred 
content of either was an act of unpardonable treason to both, when Church 
and State were one. 

Prior to the adoption of this restrictive legislation of the Bay Colony, 
no direct act of the court or magistracy can be traced to religious intol- 
erance, except in the treatment of Anne Hutchinson's party and the Exeter, 
New Hampshire exodus under Wheelwright, and even in these instances, 
as well in that of the banishment of Roger Williams, the General Court 
interpreted the events as treason to the State, and tending to the over- 
throw of Civil Government in the Colony. Excepting the Hutchinson- 
Aquidneck migration, it is difficult to maintain the position that the Bay 
Colony exercised a spirit of religious intolerance tOSvards any emigrants 
coming to Rhode Island prior to 1644. Subsequent to that date and dur- 



CIVIL AND RELIGIOUS LIBERTY 99 

ing the Governorship of John Endicott of Sak-m, all persecuted persons, — 
Baptists, Quakers and Jews and even Roman Catholics found an asylum 
and city of refuge at Newport, the original and conspicuous home of 
toleration for all persons excluded by the Act of 1644. In the history of 
the founding of the four chief towns of Rhode Island, Newport, Ports- 
mouth, Providence and Warwick, that were united in a Colonial organiza- 
tion in 1647, we shall discover the loading motive of settlement of each 
and the principal actors in the event. 

Two or three propositions will enable us to reach correct conclusions 
in the application of the Rhode Island doctrine as to Religious Liberty. 
Absolute liberty is an impossible state or condition, — 

FiR.ST. Liberty, in law, is freedom from all restraints, except such 
as the legal rights of others limit and prescribe. 

Second, Conscience liberty is the right of a person to individual 
opmions on any and all subjects in accord with moral judgements as regu- 
lated by the laws of nature, and subject in expression, to the laws of 
society. 

Third, Religious liberty is the right of freely adopting and professing 
opinions on moral and religious subjects, and of worshipping or refrain- 
ing from worship, according to the dictates of conscience, and in nonin- 
terference with the rights of others. 




CHAPTER VI 

EARLY SETTLERS OF RHODE ISLAND 





OLD STATE HOUSE. PROVIDENCE, R, I 
1763-1900 



OLD STOXE MILL, XHWI'okT 

Gciv. Benedict Arnold's Grist-Mill 
Mentioned in Will, 1678 




RICHARD SMITH BLOCK HOUSE 
Near Wickford Harbor 



AXCIKXT ARXOLD HOUSE 
ONE ROOM 

Lincoln Woods Park 
Date Unknown 



CHAPTER VI. 

EARLY SETTLERS OF RHODE ISLAND. 

Rhode Island is a small State with a history of large significance, 
wholly out of proportion to its area. Within its little territory four 
towns or settlements were made, prior to 1644 — Providence and War- 
wick, at the north, constituting Providence Plantations; Portsmouth 
and Newport, at the south, settled in 1638 and 1639, respectively, united 
in the formation of the Colony of Rhode Island, in 1640. In 1647 the 
two sets of colonial towns were united in one political body, known as 
"Providence Plantations in the Narragansett Bay in New Eng- 
land," a name coined by Roger Williams in 1643. This official title of 
the two groups of settlements was superseded by the title of The Colony 
OF Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, as established by the 
Great Charter of 1663, thereby recognizing the original names of both 
colonies. This title is the official name of the State to-day — The State 
OF Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. 

For a clear understanding of the historic movements which have 
resulted in the creation of the political unit in the Federal Union called 
Rhode Island, it should be clearly stated and intelligently understood 
that two distinct independent colonies were organized on Narragansett 
Bay; and that the name of Roger Williams was and should ever be 
associated with the founding of Providence Plantatio.ms — the colony 
at the head of Narragansett Bay. It should be as clearly stated and intel- 
ligently understood that the names of Dr. John Clarke and William Cod- 
dington are and always should be inseparably connected with the found- 
ing of Rhode Island Colony, on the Island of Aquidneck, thirty miles 
south of Providence Plantations, at the junction of Narragansett Bay 
and the Atlantic Ocean. Roger Williams had only an incidental relation 
to the settlement at Aquidneck in assisting in the purchase of the island, 
as the place of settlement. On the other hand, Clarke, Coddington and 
their associates of Rhode Island Colony had no part nor lot in the build- 
ing of the Plantations. It is of utmost importance that the distinctly 
separate histories of the two groups of settlements should be kept in 
mind. Roger Williams settled at Providence in 1636. He may be styled 
the Father of Providence Plantations. Here he lived, labored and 
died. Providence was, in large measure, what Mr. Williams made or 
failed to make it. Qarke and Coddington settled at Portsmouth, in 1638. 
They and their associates made Rhode Island Colony, they were its dis- 
tinctive founders, declaring its principles and shaping its policy. The 
colonies of Providence Plantations and Rhode Island were as dis- 



I04 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

tinctly separate and apart from each other as Plymouth Colony from 
Massachusetts Bay Colony, as Hartford Colony from New Haven, 
as New York from New Jersey. Men err when they speak of Roger 
Williams as the founder of Rhode Island. Men equally err who should 
speak of Dr. John Clarke as the founder of Providence Plantations. 
Each wrought in his own way, in the chosen sphere of his life activities, 
Williams at Providence, Clarke at Newport. 

In this new history of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, it 
is our purpose to show the motives, methods and characteristics of the 
founders of the two colonies which made our little Commonwealth. We 
hope to make clear to the students of our history the contributions of each 
of the founders to the social, moral, civil and religious upbuilding of two 
distinct colonies — later united in a single colony and State. Providence 
Plant.\tions, its associate founders, its ongoings, its successes, its 
failures, center about Roger Williams. With its successes, he succeeds. 
With its failures, he fails. Rhode Island Colony centres about Dr. John 
Clarke and Governor William Coddington. That colony stands or falls 
by the success or failure of the principles of the founders and the institu- 
tions growing therefrom. To the founding of Providence Plant.\tions 
by Roger Williams and the founding of Rhode Island Colony by Dr. 
John Clarke, we now invite your studious attention. 

The Founding of Providence. — The first white man to settle on the 
soil of Providence Plantations was the Rev. William Blackstone. A pio- 
neer in a new country is always an interesting personage, and William 
Blackstone has a fine story to tell us. He was bom in England in the year 
1595, while Elizabeth was completing the establishment of the Anglican 
church and fighting the Puritan uprising. Young Blackstone graduated 
from Cambridge University in 1617, was ordained an Episcopal clergyman 
in 1621, and in 1623 joined the Gorges expedition to found a New Eng- 
land colony, with headquarters at or near Boston, having jurisdiction, 
civil and ecclesiastical, over all settlements in this part of America. 
The Gorges Company sat down at Wessagussett, but so weakly was 
the enterprise backed in England that the leaders returned home, 
leaving a small remnant to shift for themselves. 

In 1625 Blackstone, "a bookish recluse," took up the lands on the 
Shawmut Peninsula, now Boston, and built the first house ever raised 
on that territory. It stood on the west slope of Beacon Hill, on land 
now bounded by Beacon street and Charles street, and faced the lands 
known as Boston Common. Here he lived alone, trading with the 
Indians, cultivating his garden and watching the growth of his apple 
trees— the first orchard in the Bay Colony. His nearest neighbors 
were Thomas Walford, the blacksmith, and his wife, at Mishauwum, 
or Charlestown, living in an "English palisadoed and thatched house." 



EARLY SETTLERS 105 

and Samuel Maverick, a man of twenty-eight, at East Boston, whose 
house was a trading post and a fort, armed with four large guns. All 
the settlers at that time outside of Plymouth belonged to the Church 
of England, though Blackstone declared he left England because he 
was weary of "the lord bishops ;" Mr. Blackstone appears to be the 
first of the colonial non-conformists to declare his independence of 
the Established Church on New England soil. 

In June, 1630, Governor Winthrop and his company arrived in 
Boston Harbor and landed in Charlestown, where they planned to set 
up their seat of government, but that purpose was abandoned on 
account of the lack of good water. Much sickness prevailed and sev- 
eral deaths occurred. Mr. Blackstone. in the meantime "dwelling on 
the other side of Charles River alone, at a place called by ye Indians 
Shawmut * * * came and acquainted the Governor of an excellent 
spring there; withal inviting him and soliciting him thither." As a 
result the Winthrop party removed to the peninsula, then called 
Blackstone's Neck, built their houses and called the place Boston, after 
Boston, England, the home of some of the company. 

Concerning the agreement between Mr. Blackstone and the Win- 
throp Company as to the occupation of Blackstone Neck, we have no 
records, until 1634, when Mr. Blackstone sold his landed interest for 
thirty dollars, reserving for himself six acres, including his house, on 
the north side of what is now Beacon street. Many distinguished Bos- 
tonians have lived on this six-acre area, among whom were Copley, 
Channing, Harrison Gray Otis, Prescott, David Sears, Motley, Charles 
Francis Adams, Francis Parkman, and others. 

The same year Mr. Blackstone jnirchased some cattle, and making 
his way through the wilderness for forty miles by the guide of Indian 
trails, camped on the left bank of the Pawtucket (Blackstone) river, near 
the present village of Lonsdale. Why he left Boston for a solitary home 
at Study Hill is partially revealed in a noteworthy statement made on his 
departure from Boston: "I left England to get from under the power 
of the lord bishops, but in America I am fallen under the lord brethren. 
I looked to have dwelt with my orchards and my books, and my young 
fawn and bull, in undisturbed solitude. Was there not room enough for 
all of ye? Could ye not leave the hermit in his corner?" Just liow the 
"lord brethren" exercised their "power" towards the quiet, studious but 
doughty Blackstone does not appear, but a sentence in Lecliford's Plain 
Dealing, published in London in 1641, gives a clue in the case; "One 
Master Blakcstoii went from Boston, having lived there nine or ten 
yeares, because he would not joyne with the church ; he lives neere Mas- 
ter Williams, but is far from his opinions." Of "Master Williams," he 
writes; "At Providence * * * lives Master Williams and his company 



io6 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

of divers opinions. Most are Anabaptists ; they hold there is no true visi- 
ble church in the Bay, nor in the world, nor any true ministerie." 

Looking into the acts of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, we find an 
order under date of May i8, 1631, that reads: "To the end the body of 
the Commons may be preserved of honest and good men, it was likewise 
ordered and agreed that for time to come noe man shalbe admitted to the 
freedom of this body politicke, but such as are members of some of the 
churches within the lymitts of the same." In addition to the qualification 
of church membership, every person over sixteen years of age was re- 
quired to take "The Freeman's Oath," enacted by the General Court of 
the Bay Colony, May 14, 1634, containing the pledges, "submitting my 
selfe to the wholesome laws made and established by the same." 

The case of Mr. Blackstone seems to stand thus. He is still an 
ordained minister of the Anglican church, in a measure a non-conformist, 
but not of the Puritan sort. To remain in the Bay Colony he must sub- 
scribe to the freeman's oath, which demands full obedience to all laws 
ordained by a Puritan Church-State. He must also join the Puritan 
Church, thereby relinquishing his allegiance to the Church of England. 
In this dilemma— Boston and the Puritan Church on the one hand and a 
solitary home among the Indians on the banks of the Pawtucket — with 
absolute freedom, civil and ecclesiastical — he made choice of the forest, 
free from the power of "the lord brethren" of Boston. Mr. Blackstone 
had been the sole owner of the peninsula of Blackstone's Neck for ten 
years, and the sole pioneer occupant in his own home on his own planta- 
tion for six years. He welcomes Governor Winthrop and his company of 
English non-conformists to become fellow-occupants of his lands bought 
of the Indians. They establish the Bay Colony and their laws, as to 
church and state, conflict with Mr. Blackstone's convictions. Undoubt- 
edly he made protests against what he called tyrannical laws, concerning 
which no record exists. His voluntary exile will not deprive him of the 
honor of being the founder of Boston in 1624, while it entitles him to the 
added honor of being the first permanent settler in the State of Rhode 
Island, and the first planter on the soil of Providence Plantations, in the 
year 1634. 

Mr. Blackstone's plantation included lands on both banks of the 
Pawtucket river. His house, named Study Hall, stood on a hill on the 
left bank, which he named Study Hill, within what is now the town of 
Cumberland, Rhode Island. "The Catholic Oak," then in its grand ma- 
turity, stood near his house. Here he planted apple trees and possibly 
other fruit trees and vines, as he was fond of agriculture and horticulture. 
These trees were the first that ever bore fruit in Rhode Island. "He had 
the first apples of that sort called 'Yellow Sweetings' that were ever in 
the world perhaps, the richest and most delicious apple of the whole kind." 



EARLY SETTLERS 107 

(2 M. H. C. ix, 174). Apples from Blackstone's orchard were sold in 
Boston, in 1730. Many of his trees planted 130 years before were still 
bearing when Governor Hopkins wrote in 1765, and we are told that as 
late as 1830 three of the trees were living and two of them bore apples. 

Governor Arnold tells us that Blackstone frequently came to Provi- 
dence to preach "and to encourage his younger hearers gave them the 
first apples they ever saw." His cows furnished him milk, butter and 
cheese, and Mr. Blackstone has the honor of being the first dairyman as 
well as pomologist of Rhode Island. 

Blackstone occasionally visited Boston, and married, July 4, 1259,'' 
Mrs. Sarah Stephenson, widow of John Stephenson, who lived on Milk 
street, on the site of the building in which Benjamin Franklin was born. 

In 1656 it was ordered by the General Assembly of Rhode Island, 
"That Mr. William Blaxton shall have libertie to record the right of his 
land in the record of our Collony." By this and other acts Mr. Black- 
stone was recognized as a citizen of Rhode Island. 

In 1666 he petitioned the Rhode Island Assembly for relief from 
molestation as to lands by Mr. John Brown, of Plymouth Colony, and 
Mr. John Clarke was ordered to warn that colony not to molest Mr. 
Blackstone in the quiet possession of his lands. 

The Rehoboth records state: "Mrs. Sarah Blackstone, the wife of 
Mr. William Blackstone, buried about the middle of June, 1673." 

In his later years Mr. Blackstone, when no longer able to travel on 
foot, rode on a bull that he had broken to bridle and saddle. He died at 
Study Hill, Cumberland, Rhode Island, May 26, 1675. Roger Williams, 
under date of June 13, writes: "About a fortnight since, your old ac- 
quaintance, Mr. Blackstone departed this life in the four-score years of 
his age ; four days before his death he had a great paine in his breast and 
back and bowels ; afterwards he said he was well, had no paines, and 
should live; but he grew fainter and yealded up his spirit without a 
groane." 

The inventory of his personal property was £56, 3s. 6d., including 
three Bibles, six English books in folio, three Latin books in folio, eight 
biggest books, fifteen quarto books, fourteen small books in quarto, thirty 
books in large octavo, twenty-five small books, twenty-two duodecimos, 
fifty-three small books without covers and ten paper books. All were 
destroyed by fire with Study Hall, which was burned by the Indians in 
Philip's War. His real estate, including the Blackstone Meadow, was 
estimated at 200 acres. 

Tradition has it that Mr. Blackstone often preached at various neigh- 
boring settlements and there is conclusive evidence that he preached once 
each month at Richard Smith's home at Cocumscussuc. 



io8 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

William Blackstone was a peculiar type of man to become a pioneer 
settler in a distant land. At the age of twenty-four his preparatory edu- 
cation for the university was completed and he had taken clerical orders 
in the Established Church. Joining the monarchical expedition, led by 
Fernando Gorges, he comes to New England to aid in setting up a gov- 
ernment which has for its object the control of all colonization of this 
section of the American continent, bringing Plymouth Colony under its 
domination. The Gorges movement collapses at the very outset, most of 
the party return to England, while Blackstone and a few others, including 
Samuel Maverick, stay to become permanent dwellers in and around 
Shawmut. Blackstone purchases Shawmut of the Indians and makes it 
his solitary home until the arrival of Governor W'inthrop in 1630. Mave- 
rick is the first permanent settler on Naddles Island, now East Boston. 
Later he becomes a large figure in the Bay Colony. 

W'ith the meagre story of subsequent events in mind, what place shall 
we give to the first settlers on Rhode Island soil, a founder and co- 
founder, whom Rhode Island should forever hold in honor? 

That William Blackstone was a brave soul we cannot doubt. Brad- 
ford and Standish had a company of associates, counsellors and defenders. 
Blackstone faced forest and Indian perils alone. His log hut at Shawmut 
stood in the midst of wild beasts and barbarous savages. That he was a 
student appears in the inventory of his library at his death. His interest 
in agriculture is shown in his gardens and apple orchards at Boston and 
at Study Hill. That he was hospitable is clear from his invitation to Gov- 
ernor Winthrop and his colony to share with him the lands at Shawmut. 
That he was tolerant towards men of other ecclesiastical opinions is 
manifest in inviting the Puritan Church to sit down beside an ordained 
churchman. He was a peace-maker, not a revolutionist, in that he chose 
to sell Shawmut to the Bay Colony rather than fight the Puritan Church- 
State, even when, occupying his own plantations. 

Looking at William Blackstone, separated from us by three centuries, 
he seems to stand out above the mists and storms of the troublous times 
in which he lived in the clear light of the upper skies, as a man of con- 
science, courage and faith. All these qualities are manifest in holding fast 
to the principle of soul liberty when confronted by the enactments of 
"The Freeman's Oath" and church membership. He saw in these ecclesi- 
astic acts the tyranny from which he had escaped by leaving England. 
Whatever may be said of others, William Blackstone was the first to 
declare by act on American soil the absolute independence of the indi- 
vidual man in things of the spirit. His voluntary exile from his chosen 
home at Boston, his quiet, unobtrusive life at Study Hill, his lifelong, 
consistent adherence to the grand principles of a nonconformist faith, 
entitle this man of men — this man of heroic size in an heroic age — to the 



EARLY SETTLERS 109 

admiration, the honor, the emulation of all men. From him we may learn 
that "all great and honorable actions are accompanied with great difficul- 
ties, and must be both enterprised and overcome with answerable cour- 
ages." 

Sometime, somewhere, within our Commonwealth, with singular fit- 
ness within our Capitol area, will be raised, with absolute certainty, some 
enduring memorial in honor of William Blackstone, of Study Hill, the 
first permanent white settler on the soil of Rhode Island. He has written 
his own epitaph in the speech made on leaving Boston : 

"I CAME FROM EnGL.AiND BEC.XUSE I DID NOT LIKE THE LORD BiSHOPS, 

but i cannot join with you because i would not be under the lord 
Brethren." 

William Blackstone was a pioneer settkr of the Colonies of Massa- 
chusetts Bay and of Providence Plantations, but he was not a founder. 
His home and life were apart from men. Only a few sentences of what 
he spoke or wrote survive. As a recluse he lived and died. He invited' 
no followers, he set forth no constructive plan of government, he left no 
memorial of his life work. The river, on whose banks he planted and 
toiled and died, will bear his name and witness his singular virtues, so 
singularly in contraist with the characteristics of othiers, who later made 
him their near neighbor. It was on Rhode Island soil that he lived, 
wrought, studied, died, and his dust is mingled with the rich soils of the 
valley at Lonsdale, where a monument marks his ancient home. 

The next white men to follow W. Blackstone and settle in the wil- 
derness of the Moshas'suck Valley were William Arnold and his son, 
Benedict, who came to Providence, April 20, 1636, a short time in advance 
of Roger Williams. The Arnold family arrived in New England. June 24, 
1635, stayed at Hingham until the spring of the following year, when 
father and son moved westward, crossing the Seekonk and settling in the 
Narragansett country. They were probably accompanied by William Car- 
penter, son-in-law of the elder Arnoldi, who married Elizabeth Arnold, his 
daughter. Arnold's family consisted of his wife Christian, and four chil^ 
dren, Elizabeth, 1611 ; Benedict, 1615; Joanna, 1617, and Stephen, 1622. 

The Arnolds were strong, self-centered men, independent in thought 
and purpose, vigorous in action and became the progenitors of a distin- 
guished Rhode Island family. Two Governors, one Lieutenant-Governor, 
an Attorney-General, two Speakers of the House of Representatives, two 
Members of the Continental Congress, one United States Senator, and 
two Representatives in the Lower House bore the honored name of 
Arnold, while to Hon. Samuel G. Arnold belongs the monumental honor 
of having written the most valuable history of the State his ancestors 
aided in founding. It is also noteworthy that Jonathan Arnold, a descend^ 
ant, was the author of the Rhode Island Declaration of Independence, 



no HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

adopted May 4, 1776. By a deed or memorandum from Mr. Williams, 
William Arnold became a proprietor of the Providence Plantations, pur- 
chased by Mr. Williams from Canonicus, March 24, 1638. He was also 
one of the twelve first members of the Baptist church in Providence. His 
name also appears in a list of forty-one who subscribed to a plan of gov- 
ernment by arbitration for the settlers at Providence, under date of July 
27, 1640. 

Although Mr. Blackstone and the Arnolds hold priority of settle- 
ment on Rhode Island soil, the former in 1634, and the latter, April 20, 
1636, — the honor of founding Providence and Providence Plantations will 
always be accorded to Mr. Roger Williams. Mr. Williams and his wife 
embarked on the ship "Lion," from Bristol, England, December i, 1630, 
and landed at Boston, February 5, 163 1. Governor Winthrop, on the 
event of his landing, caJls him "a godly minister." William Harris, a 
co-founder of Providence, was a passenger on the same ship, came to 
Providence as a companion of Mr. Williams and for forty-five years 
acted a conspicuous part in town and colony affairs. For five years Mr. 
Williams was engaged in teaching, preaching and manual labor at Boston, 
Plymouth and Salem. Of those years and Mr. Williams' attitude and 
relations to the Massachusetts Bay Colony, we shall speak in another 
chapter. 

On September 3, 1635, the General Court of Massachusetts Bay 
Colony ordered Mr. Roger Williams to depart "out of this jurisdiecon 
within six weeks nexte ensueing, wch if hee neglect to pforme, it shalbe 
lawfull for the gounr & two of the magistrates to send him to some place 
out of this jurisdiecon, not to returne any more without licence from the 
Court." Later in the auttmin Mr. Williams obtained permission to extend 
the time that he might remain in the Colony at Salem, but his activities so 
disturbed the peace of the community, that a pinnace was preparing to 
deport Mr. Williams. In a letter to Major Mason, dated Providence, 22 
June, 1670, Mr. Williams wrote: 

"First when I was unkindly and unchristianly (as I believe) driven 
from my house & land & wife & children (in the midst of N. Engl, win- 
ter now about 35 years past) at Salem; that ever honrd Gov. Mr. \\'in- 
throp privately w^rote to me to steer my course to the Nahiganset Bay & 
Indians, for many high and public ends, incouraging me from the free- 
nes of the place from any English claims or pattents." 

Leaving Salem, Massachusetts, in January, 1636, he travelled south- 
ward toward the Bay. How and where he spent the balance of the winter 
months is open to conjecture. Thirty-five years after his banishment, he 
wrote: "I was sorely tossed for over fourteen weeks, in a bitter winter 
season, not knowing what bread or bed did mean." The best authorities 



EARLY SETTLERS in 

believe tlTat he found shelter and Indian fare and welcome in the wigwam 
of Massassoit at Sowams, now Barrington. If so, an excellent chance 
was offered him to learn the customs, character and language of the 
Wampanoags of which tribe Massassoit was the chief Sachem. In 1677 
Mr. Williams wrote: "My soul's desire was to do the natives good and 
to that end to have their language (which I afterward printed), and 
therefore desired not to be troubled with English company." For Indian 
missionary work, no better preparatory school could be found than the 
homes and the intercourse with a friendly tribe. 

Mr. Williams was not an idler, and the approach of spring invited 
him to the soil as the source of his sustenance. What more natural thing 
could he do than to plant an early garden of Indian corn, beans and 
squashes on the banks of the Ten Mile River, on land safely within 
Massassoit's ownership. Here were soil, sun and protection. It may be 
safely assumed that at this time Mr. Williams was in the midst of master 
doubts as to his future work; shall he establish a mission, found a town 
or return to England. A little family of a wife and two children in 
Salem is the force that holds him in the service of his fellows in America. 
As the spring opens into summer, the knowledge of his whereabouts 
brings to his log hut in Seekonk, a few young fellows, full of adventure, 
who prefer the chances of the free wilderness with Mr. Williams as 
their leader to the severe discipline of life in the Bay Colony. Of this 
company, he wrote in 1677: "Yet out of Pity, I gave leave to W. Harris, 
then poor and destitute, to come along in my company. I consented to 
John Smith, Miller, at Dorchester (banished also) to go with me, and 
at John Smith's desire, to a poor young fellow, Francis Wicks, as also 
to a lad of Richard Watermans. These are all I remember." It is not 
easy to see how Mr. Williams could have forgotten Joshua Verin, one of 
the six who crossed the Seekonk to find shelter under the western slope 
of Moshassuck Hill. He it was, who, his next door neighbor on the north, 
vexed his soul to its depths, and to whom he bequeathed the title of wife- 
whipper. The "lad of Richard Waterman's" was no less than Thomas 
Angell, for whom Angell Street is named, next to Waterman Street, 
bearing the name of his patron. In the midst of spring planting and house 
building, with his little group of migrants assisting, a messenger from 
Plymouth greets Mr. Williams with a written message from Gov. Win- 
slow. The letter informs him, that while he is on the lands of the Wam- 
panoags, he is making a settlement within the Plymouth Patent, on the 
western limits of Pokanoket. Gov. VVinslow, the diplomat, tells Mr. 
Williams that Plymouth Colony does not wish to incur the displeasure 
of the Bay Colony, by harboring a banished citizen of that government, 
and advises him, in a friendly spirit, to cross the Seekonk to neutral 
territory. 



112 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

Mr. Williams had already been advised by his loving friend, Gov. 
Winthrop to betake himself to the Narragansett country, but as was his 
habit of mind, he often sought counsel and then took the opposite course, 
a common practice of self-willed men. Winslow's motive was to pre- 
serve peace between the two Colonies on Massachusetts Bay. Winthrop's 
was to use Mr. A\'illiams as an agent of the Bay to ally the Narragansetts 
with that Colony and make that tribe a strong helper in vanquishing their 
pronounced foe, the Pequots, living in the Thames Valley of Connecticut. 

Mr. Williams was a man who saw visions and dreamed dreams. 
To-day he defies the Bay Colony as to banishment, holding firmly to 
priestly pre-eminence, and the supremacy of "a distressed conscience." 
Yesterday, he was inspired to enter the field of Indian missions, to- 
morrow, he will plan a Colony of "distressed consciences" a la Williams. 
The day following, he will go into the wilderness — alone. On the banks 
of the Ten Mile River on that June morning, year 1636, Mr. Williams 
awakes to the realities of a pioneer life. The mission dream dissolves in 
the clear air of a summer morning. A winter in the "smoke hole" of a 
savage wigwam, and the remembrance of a wife and two babies, have 
scattered "such stufif as dreams are made of." That new Colony of 
"distressed consciences" must have had a distressful outlook, as he saw 
in his entourage only four young fellows, whom he characterizes as "poor 
and destitute." Possibly the coats on their backs and a few bits of peag 
in their pockets constituted the present earthly wealth of all. Literally, 
"the world was all before them, where to choose their place of rest, and 
Providence their guide." Mr. Williams' sole purpose now is to secure a 
place of safety for himself and family and the young men who have sought 
his aid. Historian Arnold says : "That it was not the intention of Ro'^er 
Williams, in seeking a refuge in the wilderness, to become the founder of 
a State, his own declaration proves." His "soul's desire to do the natives 
good" is now resolved into an efifort to find some shelter for himself and 
his little band and food for their support. Fortunately the summer sun 
is maturing the early and later berries and wild fruits, the waters are 
well stocked with fish, and the sand banks of the "great salt cove" supply, 
on demand, with little labor, the luscious, fattened bivalves, now known 
the world around, as Rhode Island clams and oysters. 

When, how and with whom, Mr. Williams crossed to the west shore 
of the Seekonk and how he was received are matters of conjecture, not 
recorded in history. Certainly, the most entertaining story of the settle- 
ment of Providence by Mr. Williams is told by Mr. Charles T. Miller, in 
his illustrated monograph, with very happy artistic work by Mr. Walter 
F. Brown, 1874. The first three verses of this poetic satire may create 
a desire to read and relish the whole. 



EARLY SETTLERS 113 

"Did you ever hear the story told, 
Of Roger Williams, the preacher bold. 
That settled this State in the days of old, — 
This Httle State of Rhode Island. 

"In sixteen hundred thirty-six, 
Roger Williams got into a fix 
By saucing the Governor of Massachusetts, 
And skedaddled away to Rhode Island. 

"He crossed as everybody knew, 
Seekonk River in a birch canoe; 
Just to save the tolls that were due 
On the bridges above and below him." 

"The earliest tradition," "the date lias not been accurately ascer- 
tained," "it is a matter of conjecture," "this interpretation," "it is pos- 
sible," "the theories," "meagre records," "unauthenticated copy of a dep- 
osition," are the staple introductions to all the probable or improbable 
stories of that water journey. The only certain thing is that he made it 
safely and by some good providence, an Indian guide or other leader- 
ship, Mr. Williams found a resting place on the east bank of the Mosh- 
assuck with one or more companions. Foster says one, Thomas Angell ; 
Moses Brown, Knowles and Staples say five; .A.rnold in 1859, names four, 
while the Providence City Seal of 1845, had four men in the boat; that 
of i8()'i, had six, and the present official seal has three in all. Our reader.i 
have a broad range for sustaining an unimportant fact. 

The "What Cheer, Netop" story rests on what United States Sen- 
ator I<"oster heard told by "the Honorable Stephen Hokins, Esq., whose 
sister married James Angell," etc., etc. By this story, it seems that Rc)ger 
Williams did not land on the west shore of .Seekonk River. "No other 
J son except the said Thomas Angell being then in company with him" 
(Roger Williams). That when they came opposite the cove now called 
IVhat Cheer Cove, they were hailed from the shore by one of the Indians, 
who understood a little English, by the friendly salutation of "What 
Cheer," froin which circumstance the Cove has ever since been called 
What Cheer Cove, so named in the early records of the town ; that Mr. 
Williams made signs to the Indians that he would meet them on the west- 
ern shore of the neck of land, on which they (the Indians) then were; 
going himself in the canoe by water, round Fox Point, which he accord- 
ingly did and met the Indians at the famous Rock and Spring, mentioned 
by Gov. Hutchinson in his History of Massachusetts — a little southwest- 
erly from the Episcopal Church." The Foster-Hopkins-Angell testiinony 
dissipates the landing of Mr. Williams at Slate or What Cheer Rock, on 
the bank of the Seekonk, reduces the company of settlers of the latest 
arrivals on the Plantation to Mr. Williams and his one servant, Thomas 

R 1—8 



114 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

Angell. and, strangest of all, transfers the famous Rock from What Cheer 
Cove to a place near the Spring, "a little southwesterly" from St. John's 
Church. William Blackstone at Study Hill, William and Benedict Ar- 
nold and William Carpenter at Pawtuxet, hold priority of occupation of 
the Plantations. 

For a period of nearly two years, we are in blissful ignorance of 
affairs at Providence except as revealed by letters of Mr. \\'illiams to 
Gov. ^^'inthrop. There are no public records for this period at least, and 
those we have as to community affairs bear no dates, though referring 
in the main to matters subsequent to Mr. Williams' purchase of lands of 
Canonicus. March 24, 1638. Each student of Providence history is at 
liberty to interpret this period of silence as his judgment may dictate. 
Our own view is that after Mr. Williams had prepared a comfortable 
cabin near the spring, on the hillside, he brought his family to the new 
settlement in which he was a squatter settler, with those who came with 
or followed him. It is not probable that Mr. Williams had approached 
his "kind friend," Canonicus for the purchase of lands until he had be- 
come well satisfied that a settlement could be made on this Indian terri- 
tory safely, nor until a sufficient number of people had joined him to 
constitute a defensible town. 

The settlement was early named "Xew Providence" by Mr. Williams 
in recognition of a divine guidance in his banishment. It was not a mis- 
sion, for neither Mr. Williams or his associates bore the semblance of 
missionaries. They owned no lands, they had no form of civil govern- 
ment. All were poor ; all but Mr. Williams had scant education. All 
were adventurers in a new land, under an untried and an inexperienced 
leader. Of the outcome, they were blindly ignorant ; the wisest alone 
knew. Faith, a kind of blind faith in "Fate," " a Divinity that shapes our 
ends," was the binding force of these pioneer planters. 

Mr. Williams believed that settlers on Indian lands should first obtain 
their titles by purchase of the Indians. He had asserted that doctrine 
in the Bay Colony. Consistency compels obedience to the principle at 
Providence. The Crown title to all newly discovered lands occupied by 
savages was a negligible factor to Mr. Williams, until he met Mr. Samuel 
Gorton in a wordy duel over English Crown rights, which the latter gal- 
lantly defended. But Indian lands were common or tribal properties, not 
individual ownership in fee simple. Socialism was a principle of wide 
application among savage tribes. The Chief Sachem could sell parts or 
the whole of the tribal lands, but it is to be assumed that their subscrip- 
tion to Indian transfers carried with it a communal rather than an ab- 
solute fee. In most of the original purchases by the whites of Indian 
land, it is doubtful whether there was a full contract, such a meeting of 
minds as a property contract requires. As late as March, 1638, Mr. Wil- 



EARLY SETTLERS 115 

liams did not own a foot of land at Moshassuck, neither did his asso- 
ciates. All looked to him to secure the title to lands for which twenty 
months delay must have made them clamorous. The Arnolds, Carpen- 
ter and Harris had located at Pawtuxet on the fertile lands at the mouth 
of the Pocasset. All others were engaged in impatient but "watchful 
waiting" on Mr. Williams. 

Our theory is that Mr. Williams had not then decided on making a 
permanent home at Providence. Uncertainty rested on all points and 
lines of outlook. He was poor, too poor to buy or settle a township of 
land. His associates were poor. The doors of Boston and Plymouth 
were closed against their return, when an unexpected hope cheers the 
Providence men. Boston has again decided to deport a large body of its 
most valuable citizens — more than three hundred. Was it chance that 
led William Coddington and John Clarke to visit Mr. Williams at Prov- 
idence in the early spring of 1638, to advise with him where these ban- 
ished families should set up their new standards and build new homes? 
\Mio knows what plans had been secretly forming between the two 
classes of men, who had won the displeasure of the Bay Colony. A real, 
an unrecorded force led to a recorded fact. The Boston Colony decides 
to purchase Aquidneck and settle it, and Mr. Williams decides to pur- 
chase the Plantations and settle there. Contracts are entered into with 
the Narragansett Sachems. As to general bounds of lands for both 
settlements and the terms of sale Mr. Williams writes both deeds, or 
memoranda, and both are executed, on March 24, 1638, at Narragansett, 
the headquarters of the tribe. Mr. Williams carries in his hands the 
purchase price of Aquidneck and in consideration therefor receives a 
free gift of Providence Plantations from his kind friends Canonicus and 
Miantonomi. The problem of Providence is solved. Doubt yields to 
certainty and the Plantations become a physical entity by the following 
Memorandum : 

At Nanhiggansic the 24th of the first month, commonly called March, 
in ye second yeare of our Plantation, or planting at Mooshausic or Prov- 
idence, Memor.\ndum, that we, Canonicus & Miantunomi, the two chief 
sachems of Nanhiggansick, having two years since, sold unto Roger Wil- 
liams, ye lands & meadows upon the two fresh rivers called Mooshansic 
& Wanasquetucket, doe now by these presents, establish and confirme 
ye bounds of those lands, from ye river and fields at Pautuckqut, ye 
great hill of Notquonchanet, on ye northwest, & the town of Mausha- 
pauge on ye west. 

As also in consideration of the many kindnesses & services he hath 
continually done for us, both with our friends at Massachusetts, as also 
at Quinnickicutt, & Apaum or Plymouth, we do freely give unto him, all 
that land from these rivers, reaching to Pawtuxet River, as also the 



Ii6 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

grass & meadows upon ye said Pawtuxet River. In writing whereof we 
have hereunto set our hands. 

Ye Mark of (XX) Cannouicus. 
Ye Mark of (XX) Miantunnomi. 
In the presence of — 

The Mark of (XX) Yotash. 
The Mark of (XX) Assotemuwit. 

This memorandum of an agreement between the Narragansett 
Sachems and Mr. WiUiams indicates in a loose fashion the bounds of 
Providence Plantations as understood by Mr. Williams. Whatever rights 
in lands or their uses were intended to be conveyed by it, in a legal sense, 
only a life estate was created and a bright real estate conveyancer could 
have purchased the fee-tail and ousted all the proprietors, at the death 
of Mr. Williams. Mr. Henry C. Dorr remarks as to this so-called deed : 
"The first memorandum was prepared without such legal advice as Mr. 
Williams might have obtained. * * * g^t Williams had an obstinate 
will and an irritable temper, and was very impatient of opposition. As 
we shall see in several instances hereafter, so on this occasion, Williams 
as was his wont, took counsel with no one, even when the rights of others 
were affected by his action. He ventured alone into the wilderness and 
the Indian stronghold at Narragansett, and secured such a title as his 
own unaided foresight determined." A second memorandum follows the 
first, written on the same sheet of paper, and is in the hand-writing of 
Thomas James. 

1639. Memorandum, 3 mo., 9th day. 
This was all again confirmed by Miantonomi ; he ack-nowledged this 
his act and hand, up the streams of Pawtucket and Pawtuxet without 
limits, we might have for our use of cattle. 
Witnesses hereof: 

Roger Williams. 
Benedict Arnold. 

The second memorandum has no legal value in that it does not show 
the signature of Miantonomi, who was the sagamore and not the Chief of 
the tribe. Still more, it seems to convey only the usufruct of the territory, 
as it stated in the term, "We might have for our use of cattle." Judge 
Staples considers this second memorandum a declaration of the bounds 
of the first and an enlargement of the area of the grant, attributing its 
faulty statement to Mr. Williams' ignorance of law, "rendering it doubt- 
ful that he ever studied under the strictly technical Coke." 

It would be a great satisfaction to know precisely what these memor- 
anda meant to the Indians. Mr. Williams may or may not have explained 
the full significance of an English deed or gift. If he did not, then Can- 



EARLY SETTLERS 117 

onicus transferred only a joint communal life title to the Plantations. 
The clause "we might have for the our use of cattle" — that is for tenant- 
at-will pasturage — seems to mean so much and no more. Subsequent 
debates with the Indians and land troubles between Mr. Williams and his 
associates, point to this interpretation by the Indians of all the memor- 
anda gives, according to Indian land tenure rights and policy. How far 
the misunderstanding as to Indian titles and the consequent apparent 
trespasses of whites on aboriginal rights had to do with the Indian wars, 
is a matter worthy of larger and later consideration. 

On the 24th of March, 1638, Mr. Williams canoed to Narragansett, 
a poor man. He returned with a gift of "Providence Plantations," af- 
firmed by the signs of Canonicus and Miantonomi. This property Mr. 
Williams regarded his own, the consideration had passed from him, and 
it was his purpose to exercise absolute personal control of it and to use 
his own judgment as to the persons who should be admitted as sharers 
of his possessions, and, by land ownership, become freemen and voters 
in the new settlement. Mr. Williams' claim of sole ownership was dis- 
puted by the leading settlers, who had already joined Mr. Williams as 
sharers with him of good or ill fortune. William Harris, a fellow pas- 
senger of Mr. Williams on the ship "Lion," and, as Mr. Williams stated, 
a fellow companion in the settlement of Moshassuck, was a man of iron 
will and more purposeful than his senior associate. He, Harris, main- 
tained for himself and the others who had joined Mr. Williams in his 
venture that they constituted a joint partnership and that the good for- 
tune that the Narragansett Sachem had conferred was a mutual grant 
for all. 

In 1677, Mr. Williams wrote a full statement of his purchase of the 
lands and the reason for changing his plan as to his individual owner- 
ship. "As to my selling to them Pawtuxet and Providence : It is not 
true that I was such a fool to sell either of them, especially as W. H. 
(arris) saith, 'like an Halter in a Market who gives most.' The truth 
in the Holy Presence of the Lord is this: Wm. H. (arris) Pretending 
Religion, wearied me with desires, that I should admit him and others 
into fellowship of my purchase. I yielded and agreed that the place 
should be for such as were destitute (especially for Conscience Sake) 
and that each person so admitted should pay 30/ — country pay, towards 
a town stock, and myself have £30 towards my charges which I have had 
£28 in broken parcels in 5 years. Pawtuxet I parted with at a small 
addition to Providence (for then that monstrous bound or business of 
upstream without limits was not thought of). Wm. Harris and the first 
12 were restless for Pawtuxet and I parted with it upon the same terms, 
viz., for the supply of the destitute, and I had a cow of them (then dear) 



ii8 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

when these 12 men (out of pretence of conscience & my desire of peace) 
had gotten the power out of my hands, etc., etc." 

Thus began a land war between Mr. Williams on tlie one hand and 
Mr. Harris and associate settlers on the other, that continued between 
the two chiefs for more than forty years until both were in their graves, 
and the final issues even only settled in English land courts forty years 
after their death. 

In this contention as to the rightful ownership of the Plantations, 
through the deed given to Mr. Williams, March 24, 1638, and 1639. he 
was within his legal rights. He held the title and could have made his 
associates his vassals, obedient to his demands. But the truth was that 
the settlers at Providence, with the exception of the Arnolds and Car- 
penters, wert Mr. Williams' personal followers, who had agreed with him 
to sliare his fortunes, while dependent upon him for protection from the 
Indians, and for securing titles to Indian lands, as he alone knew enough 
of the Indian language to treat with them on business affairs. As Mr. 
Williams had denied and in the Bay Colony had defied the English Crown 
rights to lands occupied by the Indians, he was, as he believed, in full 
ownership of thousands of acres of lands and of all possible present and 
future values of the maritime ports and of Providence as a commercial 
center. "They were mine own as truly as any man's coat on his back." 
R. W. And this claim, as is manifest, set at naught all laws and claims 
of England as to the Nation's rights in newly discovered lands. 

"Wearied," as he says by the demands of William Harris and others, 
Mr. Williams consented to the formation of a land copartnership or pro- 
prietary which should include all the territory included in his purchase. 
The following undated paper sometimes called "The Initial Deed," is 
evidence of the transfer: 

Memorandum, that I, R. W., having formerly purchased of Canon- 
icus and Miantonomi, this our situation or plantation of New Providence, 
viz., the two fresh rivers Woonas. and Moosh. and the grounds and mead- 
ows thereupon, in consideration of £30 received from the inhabitants 
of said place, do freely and fully, pass, grant and make over equal rights 
and power of enjoying and disposing the same grounds aod lands unto 
my loving friends and neighbors, S. W., W. A., T. J., R. C, J. G., J. T., 
W. H., W. C, T. O., F. W., R. W. and E. H., and such others as the 
major part of us shall admit into the same fellowship of vote with us. 
As also I do freely make and pass over equal right and power of enjoy- 
ing and disposing the said land and ground reaching from the aforesaid 
rivers unto the great river Pawtuxet, with the grass and meadow there- 
upon, which was so lately given and granted by the aforesaid Sachems to 
me. Witness my hand. R. W. 

This memorandum — scarcely that — had no legal value in that it is 
undated, the names of the grantor and grantees are only indicated by 



EARLY SETTLERS 119 

initials, their residences are omitted, and the transfer is not witnessed 
nor is Mrs. Williams' signature attached. Yet by this "scrap of paper," 
Mr. Williams transferred twelve-thirteenths of his purchase to the initial 
persons, and by their consent and agreement the thirteen became a council 
to determine who might own lands, enter into the Fellowship and become 
voters in the Proprietory established hereby. Tlie names of the persons 
indicated by the initials were Stukeley Westcott, William Arnold, Thomas 
James, Robert Cole, John Greene, John Throckmorton, William Harris, 
William Carpenter, Thomas Olney, Francis Weston, Richard Waterman, 
and Ezekiel Holyman. 

In 1661 a committee was appointed by the town to procure from Mr. 
Williams a proper deed of the first purchase. In this paper Mr. W'illiams 
sets forth such facts as his memory contained as to the purchase and sale, 
naming only seven of the original twelve proprietors, and addmg the 
names of Chad Brown, William Field, Thomas Harris, Sr,, William 
Wickendcn, Robert Williams and Gregory Dexter. This deed bears the 
full name of Roger Williams and the mark of his wife, Mary. It is dated 
Dec. 20, 166 1, and is witnessed by Thomas Smith and Joseph Carpenter. 
Another paper given by Mr. Williams under date of Providence, 22, 10 
mo., 1666, reaffirms the transfer to the twelve associate proprietors, and 
bears date, in the title, of "8 of 8tli month, 1638, so called." It adds this 
explanatory paragraph : 

This paper and writing given by me about twenty-eight years since, 
and difters not a little, only so is dated as near as we could guess about 
the time, and the manner of the men written in the straight of time and 
haste are here explained by m'C. 

This memorandum was witnessed by John Brown, John Sayles, and 
Thomas Harris, assistant. 

We have reached an important point in the afifairs of the settlement 
at Providence, when the chief settlers, thirteen in number, assume the 
ownership and control of the lands of Providence Plantations, and the 
civil functions pertaining to a Colonial Proprietorship, sometimes called 
a town. The leading facts of this chapter are these: 

1. William Blackstone was the first white settler on the territory of 
Rhode Island, in 1634. 

2. William and Benedict Arnold arrived at Providence, then Indian 
Moshassuck, April 20, 1636. 

3. Roger Williams was banished from Massachusetts Bay Colony, 
September, 1635. 

4. Roger Williams spent "14 weeks" in the wilderness, from an 
early date of 1636, probably with Massasoit, at Sowams. 



I20 



HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 



5. Mr. Williams began a settlement at Seekonk in the spring of 
1636, but, in obedience to orders of Gov. Winslow of Plymouth, crossed 
the Seekonk River and landed at Moshassuck, now Providence. 

6. On March 24, 1638, Mr. Williams in consideration of kindnesses 
and gifts, received from Canonicus, Chief Sachem of the Wampanoags, 
a gift of land between the Pawtucket and Pawtuxet Rivers. 

7. At a later period, date unknown, on demand of certain settlers, 
Mr. Williams transfers to twelve associates a joint ownership in the 
lands conveyed to him and thereby established a Colonial Proprietorship. 

8. The events of this chapter begin in 1624 and end prior to 1640. 




CHAPTER VII 



ROGER WILLIAMS IN NARRAGANSETf BAY COLONY 



CHAPTER VII. 
ROGER WILLIAMS IN NARRAGANSETT BAY COLONY. 

The magnitude of a state as a political unity is measured by the ideal- 
ism of the founders, the institutions established, and the practical out- 
come of both in the welfare of the whole community. Two separate 
foundations appear in the early story of -the State of Rhode Island. 

The first was Providence, at the north end of Narragansett Bay 
with its harbor on Providence River. As Roger Williams bore a con- 
spicuous part in the settling of Providence, and as his principles and civil 
policy had much to do in determining its operations, he may justly be 
called its founder. 

The second was The Colony of Rhode Island on the Island of 
Aquidneck at the south end of the Bay, with the town of Newport as its 
commercial centre. As Dr. John Clarke was the chosen leader of the 
settlement, and acted for nearly forty years as the chief representative 
of its purposes and workings, he may be justly styled its founder. In 
this and the succeeding chapters it is proper to give a careful review of the 
lives of the two men and the leading characteristics of the two Colonial 
organizations, separated, geographically, as widely as the Plymouth and 
Massachusetts Bay Colonies, but more widely divergent in the principles 
and details of Colonial life. 

Concerning the birth of Roger Williams, there is a great doubt as 
to time and place. Mr. Straus is authority for the statement that he was 
the son of James Williams, a merchant tailor of London, and his wife 
Alice, and was born in 11607. Dr. De.xter fi.xes the date at 1603. Dr. 
Guild fi.xes his birth year, 1602, and others as early as 1599. Felt, the 
ecclesiastical historian of New England, says Roger was the son of Wil- 
liam Williams of South Wales, and was born in 1606. That he attended 
the "Charter House School" and Pembroke College in 1624 is attested 
by Mr. Straus. Under date of 1629, the Charter House School records 
have this entry: "Roger IVilliams zvho hath exhibition (a benefice) and 
so far about five years past, hath forsaken the University and is becomes 
discontinuer of his studies there. Exhibition suspended until order to the 
contrary." 

There are absolutely no records as to the subjects studied by young 
Williams, then eighteen years old, his class rank, his graduation from 
school or college and his theological preparation for the ministry. Late 
in life, he wrote, "From my childhood, now about three score years, the 
father of lights and mercies touched my soul with a love for himself, to 



124 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

his only begotten, the true Lord Jesus, to his holy Scriptures, etc." 
Student life usually goes unrecorded, unless romance or recklessness 
breaks its monotony, but as neither appears in the life of Williams, we 
are left to useless conjecture. 

The first real break in the cloud of obscurity hanging low over Mr. 
Williams" early life, is the record that he embarked with his wife, Mary, 
in the ship Lion, Captain Pierce, master, December i, 1630, and after a 
stormy voyage of sixty-five days, arrived off Nantasket, February 5, 
1631. Gov. Winthrop spoke of him on his arrival at Boston, "as a Godly 
minister." Mr. Wilson, minister of the First Church, was about to sail 
for London and the Church invited Mr. Williams to supply his place dur- 
ing his absence, which he declined, on the ground of conscience, because 
they were "an unscparatcd people" Such a reply from a young minister, 
condemning the attitude of the Puritan Church was not calculated to win 
friends, but, the rather, to arouse prejudice, and when in April, the 
Church at Salem had invited Mr. Williams to be their teacher, the Court 
of the Bay wrote to Mr. Endicott, advising cautious action, inasmuch 
as the candidate had refused to serve the Boston Church because of its 
non-separation and also because he had broached novel opinions, "that 
the magistrate might not punish the breach of the Sabbath, nor any other 
offence as it was a breach of the first table." It is of special importance 
to note that the Salem Church had not separated from the English Church 
and that Mr. Williams sought to succeed Rev. Francis Higginson, who 
had on sailing to New England expressed the tenderest affection for "dear 
England" and "the Church of God in England." 

It is certain that Mr. Williams was not ordained at Salem, in 163 1. 
Hubbard says that the Church "for the present, forbore proceeding with 
him." It is certain that he was at Plymouth, in the autumn of 1631, 
where he taught as an assistant to the Rev. Ralph Smith. On a visit of 
Gov. Winthrop to Plymouth in 1634, he was called on to decide a matter 
which was creating disturbance, inasmuch as Smith and Williams de- 
clared that it was unlawful to apply the title "Goodman" to any miregen- 
crate man. Cotton Mather tells us that Gov. Winthrop declared it both 
proper and lawful and constantly in use in England, in courts and else- 
where, and he adds, "And that speech of Mr. Winthrop's put a lasting 
stop to the Little, Idle, Whimsical Conceits, then beginning to grow 
obstreperous." 

While at Plymouth, Mr. Williams supported himself by manual 
labor, as he says, "day and night, at home and abroad, on the land 
and water, at the How (hoe) and at the oare for bread." Here he made 
the acquaintance of Massasoit and began the study of the Indian language, 
the result of which appeared in his "Key into the Language of America, 



ROGER WILLIAMS IN NARRAGANSETT BAY COLONY 125 

etc.," published in London, in 1643. This work was a valuable contri- 
bution on tlie tongue of the Algonquins and gave Mr. Williams the friend- 
ly regard of the native tribes which continued till Philip's War. His first 
child, Mary, was born while he was at Plymouth. 

Gov. Bradford, in his history of Plymouth, wrote: 

Mr. Roger Williams (a man godly and zealous, having many precious 
parts, but very unsettled in Judgmente) came over first to ye Massachu- 
setts, but upon some discontente left yt place and came hither (wher he 
was friendly entertained, according to their poore abilitie) and exercised 
his gifts amongst them, and after some time was admitted a member of 
ye church ; and his teaching well approved, for ye benefit whereof I still 
blesse God, and am thankfull to him, even for his sharpest admonitions 
and reproufs. so farr as they agreed with truth. He this year (1633) 
began to fall into some strange oppinions, and from opinion to practise, 
which caused some controversie between ye church and him, and in ye 
ende some discontente on his part, by occasion whereof he left them some 
thing abruptly, yet afterwards sued for his dismission to ye church of 
Salem which was granted, with some caution to them concerning him and 
what care they ought to have of him. But he soone fell into more things 
ther, both to their and the government's troble and disturbance. I shall 
not neede to name particulars, they are too well knowne now to all, though 
for a time the church here wente under some hard censure by his occa- 
sion, from some that afterwards smarted themselves. But he is to be 
pitied and prayed for, and so I shall leave ye matter and desire ye Lord 
to show him his errors and reduse him into the way of truth, and give 
him a settled Judgment and constancie in ye same ; for I hope he belongs 
to ye Lord and yt he will shew him mercie. 

We have here the verdict of the generous-minded, kind-hearted Gov- 
ernor Bradford, after an acquaintance with Mr. Williams of three years, 
as his fellow church member and religious teacher. After leaving Ply- 
mouth in the interim of 1634, we find Mr. Williams at Salem, and. ac- 
cording to Winthrop an assistant to Mr. Skelton, the minister of the 
Salem church. On the death of Mr. Skelton in August, 1634, the church 
called Mr. Williams to be their pastor, occupying that place less than one 
year. The leading member of his church was John Endicott, who held 
the offices of Deputy Governor or Governor of the Bay Colony from 
1 64 1 to 1665. It was the same Endicott who had packed ofif the Browns 
to England, on the same ship on which they came, because they assumed 
the airs of Episcopalians; the same Endicott who joined with Mr. Wil- 
liams in the demand that women should not appear as worshippers in the 
Salem church without veils over their faces ; the same Endicott that 
mutilated the British flag, by cutting out the Cross, on the ground that it 
savored of Roman Catholicism, for which public ofifense he was admon- 
ished by the General Court and disqualified for holding office for a year ; 



126 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

the same Endicott that persecuted Dr. John Clarke and his associates, 
because they were Baptists ; the same Endicott that ordered the hanging 
of Mary Dyer and three other Quakers on Boston Common. 

In December, 1634, soon after Mr. Williams' advent at Salem, he 
forwarded to Gov. Winthrop and the Assistants a treatise "wherein among 
other things he disi)uted their right to the lands they possessed here, and 
concluded that, claiming by the King's grant, they could have no title, 
nor otherwise, except they compounded with the natives." This was a 
revolutionary blow aimed directly at the life of the Colony. The royal 
title was the basis of the Patent of the Bay Company. To dispute its 
validity was an act of hostility to the Bay and of treason to the English 
throne, as he had not become a freeman in Massachusetts and was still 
a full Enghsh subject. Still more. King James was charged with "a 
solemn public lie" and also "with blasphemy for calling Europe Christ- 
endom, or the Christian World" and he personally applied to King 
Charles "these three places in the Revelation,"— damnatory quotations. 
Such declarations from a minister at Salem, if allowed publicity, would 
create great dismay in the Colony and be treated as treasonable by the 
King. A hasty meeting of the General Court was called, to take action 
on these disloyal utterances. Mr. Endicott advised "dealing with Mr. 
Williams to retract the same." The outcome of the "dealing" was a sub- 
missive retraction of his position and offering his book or any part of it 
to be burned. By the advice of Reverend Messrs. Wilson and Cotton, 
it was agreed that upon his retraction or taking an oath of allegiance to 
the King it should be passed over. Mr. Williams retracted for a season. 

With regard to the purchase of lands of the natives, Mr. Williams 
made no complaint as the Massachusetts Bay Colony instructed Governor 
Endicott of Salem, in 1629, to settle justly all claims the surviving Indians 
presented for the lands, of their tribes, occupied by the whites, much of 
the territory occupied by the first settlers had no Indian occupants. In 
some cases the Indians gave up their claims, refusing any compensation. 
History does not record a single act of occupation of Indian lands in 
the Plymouth or Bay Colonies without satisfactory agreements with the 
claimants. 

In 1634, the Freeman's oath was enacted, but there is no evidence 
that he ever swore allegiance to King or Colony, as his name does not 
appear in the list of freemen. Another Roger W^illiams became a freeman 
in May, 1631. 

The period between August, 1634, and October, 1635, records the 
events in the life of Mr. Williams, which result in his separation from 
the Bay Colony. He is now the minister of the Salem Church, — a Puri- 
tan Church still in outward fellowship with the Church of England. 



ROGER WILLIAMS IN NARRAGANSETT BAY COLONY 127 

Higginson, its first minister from 1628 to 1631, on leaving England saluted 
it as "the Dear Church of England" and the homeland "Dear England," 
from which they proposed no separation. They could not say "Farewell" 
to either. 

According to Mr. Straus, Mr. Williams is now twenty-eight years 
of age and the Salem Church is his first pastorate, he being only an as- 
sistant at Plymouth. He seems to be in full and happy accord with John 
Endicott, the arch persecutor of Baptists and Quakers, who was said to 
be the chief deacon of his church and the most influential man at Salem, — 
the fiHinder and father of the town. It was by his choice and acts that 
Mr. Williams became his minister and teacher and both move in harmony 
in affairs of church and state. With such a power in the pew, the young 
pastor feels the strength of his backing in the pulpit, and gave free reign 
to his "opinions," both civil and ecclesiastical. He seems to feel that he 
is now in a position to right all the wrongs of the social, civil and moral 
world as conceived by his fertile mind and sensitive conscience. Behind 
the Endicott bulwark he feels free to assail the King on his throne at 
Westminster and the innocent, unveiled women of Salem, and all degrees 
of authority between these two extremes. Let us consider some of the 
"dyvers new & dangerous opinions" which our young teacher of the 
Gospel "divulged" at Salem, in the twelve-month period of his pastorate. 
The order of divulgation is not of consequence, nor does it appear by any 
records now in existence. 

We have already spoken of his "treatise," written at Plymouth and 
"divulged" at Salem, relating to the King's Patent. Mr. Williams re- 
tracts, — the first and only time in his life, — and offers the manuscript to 
the flames. Whether burned or not, no record of its exact contents have 
been kept, but his retraction is soon withdrawn and he returns again to 
his attack on the Bay Patent, in teaching publicly against it and the 
great sin in claiming right to lands so granted. For this second offense 
against public safety and policy Mr. Williams was summoned before the 
General Court, but at the request of Rev. Mr. Cotton, civil prosecution 
was postponed, "till outselves (the Churches) had dealt with him in a 
Church way, to convince him of his sinne." This proposal was approved 
and ministers and elders' conferred with the Salem minister, without avail, 
in quieting his disloyal teaching. At the same time that Mr. Williams, 
not a freeman, — only a resident,— of the Colony was teaching his Church 
and the Salem people how wicked their Patent was, he was the owner of 
ten acres of this polluted, sin-stricken land, and owned a house and lot in 
Salem. His conscience did not prevail against personal ownership of the 
ill-gotten acres of the Bay Company, the jewel of consistency was lost in 
the greed for possession. 



128 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

The General Court now found its very life in jeopardy from enemies 
near and remote, in Salem and in England. For self-protection, it 
adopted the "Resident's Oath," supplementary to the "Freeman's Oath." 
It required every man, above twenty-one years of age, not a freeinan, 
resident within the jurisdiction for six months, to be obedient to the laws, 
to promote the peace and welfare of the plantation and to reveal any 
plots against it, which should come to his knowledge. There was nothing 
strange or unusual in "the Oath" of allegiance and obedience. It was a 
protective remedy for disobedience in that it authorized the Court to send 
any person out of the Patent who refused to make oath. This act pinches 
Mr. Williams. He has been in New England above four years and has 
not become a citizen. He is now teaching the people that the company has 
no legal rights to its lands under the Royal Patent of King Qiarles. The 
new oath requires him to swear obedience to Company and to Crown. He 
not only refuses compliance but "divulges a newe strange opinion that 
an officer of the Colony has no right to tender an oath to an unregencratc 
person," "thereby to have communion with a wicked in the worship of 
God. and cause him to take the name of God in vain." There is no other 
instance in history when the avoidance of a legal oath was based on such 
a pretext. Its logical conclusion is that the worse the man, the less his 
obligation to fealty. Under such a specious cloak, Mr. Williams sought to 
cover his own departure from duty, his short-comings and his opposition 
to the policy of the Bay Colony. Summoned before the General Court 
for the third time, Mr. Williams and his friend Mr. Endicott argued the 
matter. Mr. Endicott declared himself convinced of his error and re- 
tracted. The Court declared that he was "very clearly confuted," but 
Mr. Williams and most of his Church remained unconvinced of their 
error, although holding an opinion, under the protest of the Court, the 
magistrates and all the ministers of the several Puritan Churches. Gov. 
Winthrop tells us that "many, especially of devout women, did embrace 
his opinions." 

It was probably at this time that Mr. Williams had a revelation, "that 
a man ought not to pray with the unregenerate, even though it be with 
his wife and child." and a further revelation was made that an unregen- 
erate man could not pray in his own right and behalf, which placed the 
poor sinner in a bad fix, leaving him to be saved or damned according to 
the laws of foreordination and election. It takes a whole lot of phil- 
osophy, of historic credulity and Christian charity, in the attempt to har- 
monize such opinions as have been stated with the sanity of mind of a 
teacher of religious truth, even in the seventeenth century. Vagaries are 
vagaries in all centuries. 

In the face of the acts and protests of the General Court and the min- 



ROGER WILLIAMS IN NARRAGANSETT BAY COLONY 129 

isters of the Bay Colony, Mr. Williams was ordained as pastor of the 
Salem Church, in June, 1635, while yet the relations between him and the 
Colony were unadjusted, and in defiance of the civil government. Such 
action of a young minister and his church could not go by unrebuked, and 
Mr. Williams was cited to appear before the General Court, July 8-18, 
1635, to answer the following complaints as to his offensive teachings : 

1. That the magistrates ought not to punish the breach of the first 
table, except when the civil peace should be endangered. 

2. That an oath ought not to be tendered to an unregenerate man. 

3. That a man ought not to pray with the unregenerate, even though 
it be with his wife and child. 

4. That a man ought not to give thanks after the sacrament, nor after 
meat. 

Other events in the relations of calcitrant Salem and its ministers 
and the Bay Colony are hastening the issue which may result in a cleavage 
of Essex and Suffolk, of Boston from Salem. In addition to the lands 
held by the Salem Church and people a petition is before the Court for 
more of the land, tainted by an illusory Patent, as taught by Mr. Wil- 
liams, — "the land betwixte the Clifte and the Forest Ryver, neere Marble 
Head." Naturally, the Court laid the petition on the table until other 
important matters were settled. Mr. Williams felt the blow so severely 
that he retaliated by procuring the consent of the Salem Church to letters 
of admonition, written and sent by himself, in their name to all other 
churches of the Bay Colony, admonishing them of the "heinous sin" 
committed by their members, the magistrates, in withholding from Salem 
a large tract of land which Mr. Williams had declared was illegally 
owned. 

The situation is peculiar. The land issue is a civil matter, cognizant 
by the General Court. No cjuestion of interest to the Salem Church is 
at stake. The town of Salem and the Bay Colony are the parties involved 
in the case. As an individual and a possible citizen of Salem, not a free- 
man of the Colony, Mr. Williams might justly have entered his protest. 
As a landowner and householder he might petition the General Court to 
reverse its decision. A wiser, a more prudent man and minister of relig- 
ion would have thus proceeded. .Not so, Mr. Williams. He aims to set 
the churches of the Bay Colony in an attitude hostile to the General Court, 
the ecclesiastical forces vs. the civil government. 

The issue was now made. On the one side was the church of Salem 
and its young minister, scarcely thirty years of age ; on the other were 
the Governor and Company of Massachusetts, nearly or quite five thou- 
sand English people, more than five hundred freemen settled in at least 

R 1-9 



130 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

twenty-five towns and villages, along the shores of Massachusetts Bay, 
from Ipswich on the north to Hingham on the south. No question of 
legal rights has been raised, there has been no interference with the in- 
dividual conscience, there has been no demand for or restraint of civil or 
religious freedom. A Congregational minister has "dyvulged newe and 
strange opinions," — opinions purely academic or absolutely without the 
province of the Colonists or the Churches to decide. The land title at 
issue must be referred to the justices of the King's Bench in England. 
The duties of magistrates and the taking of oaths are to be decided by 
the same high authority. As to the rights of regenerates and unregen- 
erates, these may and can only be settled squarely and absolutely at the. 
last Assize by the Final Judge of all the Earth. It may then be determined 
who are and who are not regenerates and the limitations and freedom of 
each. The labors of the Massachusetts clergy having been appealed to, 
were now directed towards Mr. Williams and his church. The result of 
such efforts was that a majority of the members of the Salem church 
left Mr. Williams and joined the loyal Colonists, while the minister held 
firmly to his position on all the matters at issue. 

On Saturday, August 15-25, 1635, a terrific gale swept the New Eng- 
land Coast, the equal of which in the fury of the northeast wind, the 
, immense downpour of rain, and the height of the ocean tides was never 
known before or since. Crops were destroyed, hundreds of thousands of 
forest trees were uprooted, ships foundered at sea, and houses were pros- 
trated or unroofed. On the Sabbath morning of the i6th, a goodly con- 
gregation gathered by difficult and devious paths at the little Puritan 
meeting-house, but Mr. Williams was not in the pulpit and the Elder con- 
ducted the services, a part of which was the reading of a letter from the 
pastor, probably written during the storm of Saturday, while a storm of 
equal or greater intensity was raging in his own soul. Dr. Dexter has 
described the attitude of Mr. Williams : "It was a solemn protestation. 
He had made up his mind fully. He could hold communion with the 
churches of the Bay no longer. They were unclean by idolatrous pollu- 
tions. They were defiled with hypocrisy and worldliness. They needed 
cleansing from anti-Christian filthiness and communion with dead works, 
dead worship, dead persons in God's worship. They ought to loathe 
themselves for their abominations, and stinks in God's nostrils (as it 
pleaseth God's spirit to speak of false worships) ; for they were false 
worshippers of the true God, liable to God's sentence and plagues ; guilty 
of spiritual drunkenness and whoredoms, of soul-sleep and soul-sickness 
in submitting to false churches, false ministry and false worship. They 
were ulcered and gangrened with obstinacy ; their ministry was a false 
and a hireling ministry; their doctrines were corrupt; they were asleep in 



ROGER WILLIAMS IN NARRAGANSETT BAY COLONY 131 

abundant ignorance and negligence, in gross abomination and pollutions, 
which the choicest servants of God and most faithful witness of many 
truths were living in, more or less. And the breath of the Lord Jesus 
was sounding forth in him (a poor despised ram's horn) the blast, which 
in His own holy season should cast down the strength of all these inven- 
tions of men, in the worshipping of the true and living God." Solemnly, 
he gave his testimony against those churches; solemnly he separated from 
them as unworthy to be fellowshiped as true churches of the living God. 
He should communicate with tliiem no more. And, further, he should 
communicate with them to whom his letter was addressed no more, un- 
less they were prepared to follow whither now he led, and renounce com- 
munion with all other professing followers of God in the Massachusetts 
Colony. 

The natural effect of such a letter .was, as might be expected, to 
alienate a great body of the church from Mr. Williams, while "the whole 
church was grieved herewith." Morton says, "the more prudent and 
sober part of the Church, being amazed at his way, could not yield to 
him." 

Mr. Williams never entered the Salem meeting-house again. He 
turned his back on all the churches of the Bay and all, including his own, 
turned their backs on him. Cotton Mather says, "His more considerate 
church, not yielding to those lewd proposals, he never would come to 
their assemblies any more; no, nor hold any communion in any exercise 
of religion with any person, so much as his own wife, that went unto 
their assemblies ; but at the same time he kept a mutiny in his own house, 
whereto resorted such as he had infected with his extravagance." Mather 
adds, "which occasioned him for a season to withdraw communion in 
spiritual duties even from her (his wife) also, till at length he drew her 
to partake with him in the error of his way." 

Mr. Williams' many and grievous offences against Church and State 
have now reached their climax and for a consideration of all and a verdict 
thereon, he was summoned to appear before the General Court at its Sep- 
tember Session, 1635. As the matters for judgment related to ecclesias- 
tical questions, the ministers of the Bay, his peers, were invited to sit in 
the Council, most of whom were graduates of Cambridge University, 
England, and several were men of distinction in their profession. The 
Court of Inquiry was made up of the Governor, Deputy Governor, eight 
assistants and twenty-five Deputies from nine towns, with twelve clergy- 
men, as an advisory body. Of this distinguished and historical body were 
Gov. John Haynes, a wealthy land-holder in Essex and later Governor of 
Connecticut ; Deputy Governor Richard Bellingham, bred a lawyer, 
formerly Recorder of Boston, England, and thrice elected Governor of 



132 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

the Bay; John Winthrop, once and again Governor of the Bay and the 
"loving friend" of Mr. Williams ; William Coddington, treasurer of the 
Company and later a founder and Governor of the Colony of Rhode 
Island : Simon Bradstreet, later Governor of the Bay, and a man of great 
influence in the Colony : Thomas Dudley, later Governor ; Increase Xow- 
ell, a man of family and education, an Assistant, an Elder and later Col- 
onial Secretary; William Hutchinson, husband of Anne Hutchinson, a 
liberal in theolog}-. later a founder of the Colony of Rhode Island ; Wil- 
liam Brenton, also a liberal, a Deputy and a founder of the Colony of 
Rhode Island; Capt. John Mason, the famous Indian fighter and con- 
queror of the Pequot tribe ; Dr. George Alcock, Deacon of the Roxbury 
Church and ancestor of A. Bronson Alcott ; Rev. John Wilson and Rev. 
John Cotton, the minisfiers of the Boston Church, — one liberal, the other 
severely orthodox ; John Eliot, the apostle to the Indians ; Thomas Welde, 
an active opponent of Mr. Williams ; Thomas James, the pastor at Charles- 
town ; Thomas Hooker, pastor at Cambridge, later the leader and 
founder of the Colony at Hartford, and others whose names are familiar 
in Massachusetts history. Before such a remarkable body of men, the 
leaders in Church and State, learned in law, in theology, and in civil gov- 
ernment, the chosen protectors of the rights of the people, all practical 
separatists from the Church of England, all nominally Puritans in all 
essentials of belief and practice, the trial took place. For intellectual 
ability, sterling integrity, honest-mindedniess and moral worth the Court 
that tried Mr. Williams was preeminent in Colonial history. The ex- 
tremes of Puritan theology were equally represented, — the liberal in 
Cotton, Hutchinson, Preston, Coddington and Hooker,— the conservative 
in Wilson, Welde, Dudley, Bradstreet and Winthrop. It was a jury qual- 
ified to decide, with equal justice, questions of law, civil government and 
theological dogma, and the trial was conducted with a calmness, a mod- 
eration and a decorum, somewhat extraordinary in an age of small char- 
ity for ofTenders and of bitter invective towards opponents. Justice, tem- 
pered by a spirit of friendship towards Mr. Williams, guided in this 
council of wise and learned men, summoned to act at a critical period on 
grave questions. Knowles, a biographer of Mr. Williams, says: "It is 
due to the principal actors in these scenes, to record the fact, of which 
ample evidence exists, that personal animosity had little, if any, share in 
producing the sentence of banishment. Towards Mr. Williams, as a 
Christian and a minister, there was a general sentiment of respect." 

The General Court met in the rude meeting-house, at Xewtown 
(Cambridge), on Thursday, October 8, 1635. As town and church were 
one, the meetings for affairs secular and religious were held under the 
same roof. A large amount of general business of the Company and 



ROGER WILLIAMS IN NARRAGANSETT BAY COLONY 133 

Colony was first attended to. One of the orders was "that John Smyth 
shalbe sent within theis 6 weekes out of this jurisdiction, for dyvers 
dangerous opinions, wch hee holdeth and hath divulged. If in the mean- 
time he removes not himself out of this Plantacion." This was the John 
Smith, who came to Providence with Mr. Williams, of whom he wrote, 
"I consented to John Smith, miller at Dorchester (banished also), to go 
with me, and at John Smith's desire, to a poor young fellow, Francis 
Wickes as also to a lad of Richard Waterman's." 

Later in the day Mr. Williams' case was called and all of the offences 
charged were recited. When asked if he was ready to satisfy the Court 
on these matters, he justified his letters and opinions and refused to 
retract or withdraw either. To the suggestion of the Court that he might 
have more time for reflection, he replied that he chose "to discuss pres- 
ently," and so the hearing or debate began, the Court appointing Rev. 
Thomas Hooker to answer Mr. Williams and endeavor to show him his 
errors. A glimpse is given us of the proceedings, as revealed by Rev. 
John Cotton, the liberal teacher at Boston. He writes, Mr. Williams com- 
plained to the Court, "that he was wronged by a slanderous report up 
and down the countrey, as if he did hold it to be unlaw full for a father 
to call upon his child to eat his meat. Our reverend brother, Mr. Hooker 
(the Pastor of the church where the Court was then kept), being moved 
to speak a word to it, 'Why,' saithe he, 'you will say as much again (if you 
stand to your own Principles) or be forced to say nothing.' When Mr. 
Williams was confident he should never say it, Mr. Hooker replyed, 'If 
it be unlaw full to call an unregenerate person to take an Oath, or to Pray, 
as being actions of God's worship, then it is unlavvfull for your unregen- 
erate childe to pray for a blessing upon his own meate. If it be unlawful! 
for him to pray for a blessing upon his meate, it is unlaw full for him to eat 
it, for it is sanctified by prayer, and without prayer unsanctified (I Tim. 
IV: 4, s). If it be unlawful! for him to eate it, it is unlawful! for you 
to ca!! upon him to eate it, for it is unlawful! for you to cal! upon him to 
sinne.' Here Mr. Williams thought better to hold his peace than to give 
Answer." 

The Court adjourned on October 8, with the Williams case unfin- 
ished, to be resumed on the 9th. Arguments continued during the day and 
before evening were concluded, Mr. Williams still defending his positions. 
At the close the unanimous verdict of the General Court of the Bay Col- 
ony was rendered, reenforced by "all the ministers save one," — that one 
being Rev. John Cotton of Boston. The sentence was as follows : 

Whereas Mr. Roger Williams, one of the Elders of the Church 
OF Salem, hath broached & dyvulged dyvers newe & dangerous 
opinions, against the aucthoritie of Magistrates, as also writt 



134 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

LIES OF DEFAMACOX, BOTH OF THE MaGISTR.\TES & CHURCHES HERE, & 
THAT BEFORE ANY CONNICCOX, & YET MAINETAINETH THE SAME WITHOUT 
RETRACCON, it is THEREFORE ORDERED, THAT THE SAID AIr. W'iLLIAMS 
SHALL DEPTE OUT OF THIS JURISDICCON WITHIN SIXE WEEKES NOWE NEXTE 
ENSUING WCH IF HEE NEGLECT TO PFORME, IT SHALBE LAWFULL FOR THE 
GOUE & TWO OF THE MAGISTRATES TO SEND HIM TO SOME PLACE OUT OF 
THIS TURISDICCON, NOT TO RETURNE ANY MORE WITHOUT LICENSE FROM 

THE Court. 

Before sentence was declared, Gov. Haines, whom Mr. \\'illiams 
called "that Heavenly man," summed up the charges, and Mr. Williams 
reported them as follows : 

Mr. Williams said he holds forth these particulars : 

First, That we have not our land by Pattent from the King, but that 
the Natives are the true owners of it, and that we ought to repent of such 
a receiving it by Pattent. 

Secondly, That it is not lawfull to call a wicked person to sweare, 
to pray, as being actions of God's worship. 

Thirdly, That it is not lawfull to heare any of the Ministers of the 
Parish Assemblies in England. 

Fourthly, That the Civill Magistrates power extends only to the 
Bodies and Goods, and outward state of men, etc. 

To this the Governor added, "Now I beseech you, brethren, marke 
them which cause diuisions and offences, contrary to the doctrine which 
ye haue heard ; and avoyd them." Rom. xvi, 17. 

Mr. W'illiams had been a resident of New England since February 5, 
1631, a period of four years, eight months and four days, between his 
arrival and the date of exile, the gtb of October, 1635. Three of these 
years were spent as a religious teacher at Plymouth and Salem, where 
he had toiled at the hoe and the oar during the whole of that period for 
the support of himself and family, which by the birth of two children, 
Mary and Freeborn, bad increased to four persons. He had been a mem- 
ber of each of the churches in which he taught, but for some reason had 
not become a citizen of either Colony in which he resided and so far as 
appears took no interest in the civil concerns of either, except to criticise 
and malign. The people to whom he had come as an ordained minister 
of the Gospel are his own countrymen. They are, like him, newcomers 
to a new land and are struggling with new problems of State and Church. 
They are threatened with the loss of their Patent and holdings by secret 
and open enemies in England. The musket is their daily companion in 
the workfield, the forest and by the fireside. In every newcomei- to the 
infant town, the Puritan leaders hope to find an added defender of their 
homes and hopes. Young Williams is welcomed by Gov. Winthrop as 
"a godly minister, — his wife as a godly helper. Fresh from school, ardent 



ROGER WILLIAMS IN NARRAGANSETT BAY COLONY 135 

and enthusiastic in the flusli of opening manhood — not yet thirty years old, 
— he seems to his elders a young David, equipped to cope with the Goliaths 
of a strange land. He will surely support the Crown of which he is a sub- 
ject and the Colonial government, which shelters and protects him. He 
will at once enter into its organic life as a citizen and loyally support its 
civil policy. He will consort with the reformed churches, and, as a 
religious teacher, enter into their communion and fellowship. He will 
sustain the magistrates in their official duties, and honor the men who 
protect the Christian Sabbath and the sanctity of an official oath. He will 
act the part of a wise leader and teacher of his own church and will labor 
for the peace and unity of all the brotherhood of churches. He will 
harbor no vagaries in thought or conduct and exercise no disputatious 
spirit in ecclesiastical or civil concerns. He will, in a single word be a 
model Christian teacher and citizen, fulfilling what he wrote, twenty years 
later to the town of Providence to quiet its restless lawlessness, — "There 
goes many a ship to sea, with many hundred souls in one ship, whose 
weal and woe is common, and is a true picture of a commonwealth, or a 
human combination, or society. It hath fallen out sometimes that both 
Papists and Protestant, Jews and Turks, may be embarked in one ship ; 
upon which supposal I affirm, that all the liberty of conscience that I ever 
pleaded for, turns upon these two hinges:. That none of the Papists, 
Protestants, Jews or Turks be forced to come to the ship's prayers or 
worship, nor compelled from their own particular prayers or worship, if 
they practice any. I further add, that I never denied, that notwithstanding 
this liberty, the commander of this ship ought to command the ship's 
course, yea, and also command that justice, peace and sobriety be kept and 
practised, both among the seamen and all the passengers." 

Well said, Roger Williams, in 1635. From 1631 to 1636, you were 
both a seaman and a passenger on board two New England ships of state, 
the Plymouth and the Massachusetts Bay Colonies, sailing on uncharted 
seas for the port of universal freedom. The captains and the ship's 
ruler, in no way, by force or compulsion, interfered with your freedom 
of conscience, of intellect or will. All that they asked was loyalty and the 
exercise of all the constructive forces you possessed to aid in bringing 
these ships safe to port. Dropping the figure, it can be safely said that 
Mr. Williams was absolutely out of harmony with the Puritan and Pil- 
grim Church and State in New England. While using at all times the 
privileges and freedom bestowed, his whole strength was spent intellec- 
tually in opposing law, and government, from the overthrow of the Patent 
to the denunciation of governors, ministers and churches, declaring all to 
be corrupt and the ministers of Satan. Magistrates are instructed that it 



136 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

is unlawful to enforce Sunday laws and that it is unlawful and sinful 
to administer an official oath to "an unregenerate person." Christians 
are taught that it is a sin to pray with an "unregenerate" be it wife or 
child, and that it is a sin to call an "unregenerate," a "Goodman," or for 
a woman to go, unveiled, to church. He approves the mutilation of the 
British flag, and buys and builds on the sin-tainted land of the Bay Com- 
pany. He leaves the church at Plymouth "abruptly," and the Salem 
church in a fit of anger. During the whole period Mr. Williams has 
made no complaint of any interference with his freedom of conscience or 
of worship, and there was no occasion, so far as the records show, he 
did not utter a word in defence of the doctrine of soul liberty in Massa- 
chusetts. His "opinions" seem the careless thinking of an opinionate 
man, whose mind assumes the disputatious attitude and who chooses the 
field of academic debate and dialectic criticism, in preference to the con- 
structive and peaceful attitude of a Christian state-builder. 

Mr. Williams has, in his own sober judgment, declared the verdict of 
the General Court just and warranted. In the latter part of 1655, al- 
ready quoted in part, Mr. Williams continues: 

If anv of the seamen refuse to perform their service, or passengers 
to pay their freight; if any refuse to help, in person or purse, towards 
the common charges or defence; if any refuse to obey the common laws 
and orders of the ship, concerning their common peace or preservation; 
if any shall mutiny and rise up against their commanders and officers ; if 
any should preach or write that there ought to be no commanders or 
officers, because all are equal in Christ ; therefore no masters nor officers, 
no laws, nor orders, no corrections nor punishments ; I say, I never denied, 
but in such cases, whatever is pretended, the commander or commanders 
may judge, resist, compel, and punish such transgressors, according to 
their deserts and merits. 

Mr. Williams stands self-condemned. 

A single sentence may embody the historv- of Mr. Williams in the 
Plymouth and Bay Colonies from February i, 1631, to February i, 1636. 
He came to Boston, a Puritan clerg>'man ; he attacked, denounced and 
renounced the whole Puritan Church and ministry; he attacked and de- 
nounced the Bay State Patent ; he declared against the civil oath and the 
civil magistracy; he refused to join the civil society, whose protection he 
enjoyed; he counselled acts of disloyalty in mutilating the British flag; 
his acts and teaching tended to disturb and disrupt the Bay Colony, to 
discredit its authority, and to destroy the life of the Bay Colony by some 
catastrophe, at home or in England. John Quincy Adams declared the 
teaching and influence of Roger Williams in Massachusetts "wholly rev- 
olutionary." The expulsion of Mr. Williams saved the Colony from 



ROGER WILLIAMS IN NARRAGANSETT BAY COLONY 137 

social, civil and religious disorganization and overthrow. Individualism 
set itself boldly and insistantly against the Colonial life. In such an issue 
the event was necessary, logical, conclusive. 

The decision of the General Court of the Bay was rendered on Octo- 
ber 9-19, 1635. The six weeks' stay granted Mr. Williams terminated 
on Friday, 20-30 November. The illness of Mr. Williams and the arrival 
of a Williams' baby caused a reasonable delay in the departure, and in 
view of these and other circumstances the authorities gave him leave to 
stay in Salem until spring (1636), on condition that he should not "go 
about to draw others to his opinions." About this time Gov. Winthrop 
wrote him "to steer his course to the Nahigonset Bay and Indians, for 
many high and heavenly and publike ends, incouraging me from the free- 
nes of the place from any English claims or patients." Recovery from 
illness and the tonic of winter days aroused in Mr. Williams the unre- 
strained spirit of preaching his "opinions" on Bay matters to such as 
came to his house, so that above twenty persons had joined his cause. 
Lest the spirit of disloyalty should gain greater strength, Governor 
Haines and the Assistants, in council, decided to send Mr. Williams back 
to England by ship lying at Nantasket, ready to sail. Mr. Williams was 
summoned to Boston, by warrant, but, feigning sickness, did not go. 
Capt. John Underbill was sent to Salem with a pinnace to take Mr. Wil- 
liams to the ship at Nantasket, but was advised that the sick man had 
been gone three days. Mr. Williams arrived in Boston, February, 1631. 
His flight from Salem occurred in January, 1636. 

Mr. Williams was not a student of civil government. That was not 
the burning question of the day. Debate on religious matters, forms, 
creeds, abstract interpretations, was the occupation of the learned of both 
clergy and laity. Foreordination, election, reprobation, the real presence, 
free grace, perseverance, were questions of church, camp and court. 
Democracy, the freedom of the common man, in affairs civil and religious, 
was little studied and less understood. The Puritan was a patriot, but 
not a democrat. The Puritan Church-State was ecclesiastical authority. 
The Puritan State-Church was civil domination of soul estates. Macau- 
lay says that "The Puritans espoused the cause of civil liberty mainly be- 
cause it was the cause of religion." The passionate worshippers of free- 
dom of that day, Cromwell called heathen. John Locke ( 1632-1704), was 
the first of moderns to define civil government, soul liberty, conscience 
liberty, and to show how both might harmonize in a civil state. Still 
there were men in Western Europe who had a clear vision of human 
rights, — who understood the true value of soul liberty, — who, through 
severe persecution, had made measure of their faith in the freedom of 
body and soul. The Pilgrim Separatists were of this class. So were the 



138 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

Baptists. Even the liberal Puritan stood for freedom in personal rights, 
in civil concerns and in faith. The Bible was his guide and interpreter 
in things temporal and in things spiritual. Samuel Gorton, one of the 
founders of Warwick, writing of himself says, "/ yearned for a country 
where I could be free to zvorship God according to zvhat the Bible taught 
mc, as God enabled vie to understand it. I left my native country (Eng- 
land) to enjoy liberty of conscience in respect to faith toivard God and 
for no other end." 

Of great Englishmen standing in the forefront in defence of civil 
and soul freedom were John Hampden, gentleman, Sir Harry Vane, 
scholar, Oliver Cromwell, statesman and soldier. These great souls were 
types of the great historic life, in which they were leaders, in the contest 
for soul liberty on English soii. 

It is but justice to Mr. Williams to say that he had had no exper- 
ience in affairs of government and that his ideas of freedom, at this 
time, tended towards a broad and defiant license. Twenty years l^ter 
we find him championing obedience to government and a just regard for 
the opinions and faiths of others. Still further, the indecision, the un- 
certainty, the change of mental attitude, the angry moods, the incon- 
stancy and inconsistencies of Mr. Williams' early life in the Bay and at 
Providence were undoubtedly due to temper and temperament, to a dog- 
matic egotism and vanity, to a spirit naturally disputatious, under the 
general exercise of a generous nature, a self-sacrificing spirit, and a 
soul that harbored no revenges. The greatest handicap to Mr. Williams' 
true position in history, however, has been the attitude of his biographers 
and apologists, who, persistently, and in the presence of the clearest 
contradictory evidence, have maintained his primacy as a leader in civil 
and soul liberty. This position Mr. Williams never claimed for himself, 
has been maintained for purely partisan purposes, and is yielding grad- 
ually to the claims of historic truth. 

Another hindrance to the understanding of Mr. Williams has been 
the misinterpretation of a phrase, so often used by him, "distressed con- 
sciences," and like terms. Such words mean to-day a state of mind 
growing out of opposition to existing conditions, institutions or laws. 
Socialists have "distressed consciences" as to capitalism ; single taxers 
are "distressed in conscience" 'over present methods of taxation. Pro- 
hibitionists have "distressed consciences" over alcoholism. Women suf- 
fragists are "distressed in conscience" that they are not possessed of the 
ballot. A man leaves his boarding house with "a distressed conscience" 
gendered by stale bread and vegetable hash. No law, order, custom or 
tradition of the Bay touched Mr. Williams or his followers in the re- 
straint of their individual freedom, at any point, civil, political, social 



ROGER WILLIAMS IN NARRAGANSETT BAY COLONY 139 

or religious. Tlieir civil and religious liberty was absolute, because they 
could not compel the government of the Bay, its churches and magis- 
trates to adopt their "opinions," their "distressed consciences" led some 
of them to join Mr. Williams at New Providence. Hence the Colony of 
Providence Plantations. 

Mr. Williams is now at the age of twenty-nine, an exile from the 
Bay and a wanderer. Alone in the wilderness, he goes forth, not as a 
missionary nor as a state founder, but to find a place of safety for him- 
self and family. His short stay at Seekonk attests his mental uncertainty 
as to motive and situation. Obedience to authority, not a crowning qual- 
ity of Mr. Williams, leads him to cross the Seekonk and plant his stand- 
ard on the banks of the Moshassuck. Two years of startling silence is 
only broken by the arrival of a few adventurers, poor in purse, "distressed 
in conscience," and the restlessness of the squatter company for lands and 
other unexplored blessings, — two years of doubt and great perplexity 
to Mr. Williams. During this period Mr. Williams has made no sign as 
to motive or method. Early in the spring of 1638, a faint light penetrates 
the heavy darkness. It may be the precursor of dawn at Moshassuck. A 
whole colony of families, banished from the Bay, seek Mr. Williams' 
advice as to a place of settlement. Aquidneck is chosen, and Mr. Williams 
is made the intermediary for a deed from Canonicus to Coddington. 

Mr. Williams now sees the way open for his own associates at Prov- 
idence and on the 24th of March, 1638, the deeds of Moshassuck and 
Aquidneck are signed at Narragansett, and the land foundations estab- 
lished for two settlements. 




CHAPTER VIII 



PROVIDENCE— IT'S BEGINNING 



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CHAPTER VIII. 
PROVIDENCES— IT'S BEGINNING. 

Providence is located at the junction of the Pawtucket, the Mosh- 
assuck, and the Woonasquatucket rivers, which after their union, and 
the influx of the waters of the Pawtuxet, flow into what was known by 
Miantonomi, the Narragansetts and Wampanoags, as Sowams Bay. This 
bay was the upper part of what is now known as Narragansett Bay, lying 
to the north of Prudence Island, and east of the territory of Shawomet, 
or Warwick. In the deed of Warwick, by Miantonomi to Samuel Gorton 
and others, January, 1643, the eastern bound, from north to south was 
"Sowhomes (Sowams) Bay." The Indian name of Providence was 
Moshassuck, from the name of the river, which has its headwaters near 
Lime Rock, in the town of Lincoln, Rhode Island. Moshassuck was a 
part of the territory owned by the Narragansett tribes, but no part of the 
present town was occupied as an Indian village. At one time, there was 
a village at Mashapaug and another on the Pawtucket River, near the 
present location of Saylesville, between Quinsnicket and the river. The 
first white man of record to traverse the Moshassuck territory was Wil- 
liam Blackstone, who, leaving Coston in 1634, took up lands along the 
Pawtucket River, at the present village of Lonsdale, calling his new home 
"Study Hill." 

In April, 1636, William Arnold, his son Benedict, son-in-law William 
Carpenter, crossed the wilderness country between Massachusetts Bay 
and the Narragansett, explored the lands at Moshassuck and settled at 
the mouth of the Pawtuxet River, on the north bank, now in the town 
of Cranston. This party consisted of William Arnold and Christian, his 
wife, his daughter Elizabeth, and her husband, William Carpenter, a son 
Benedict, a daughter Joanna, and a son Stephen, — seven persons in all, — 
the youngest son being a sturdy lad of fourteen years. These pioneers 
planted, cultivated and harvested the first white man's crops within the 
limits of ancient Moshassuck. The Arnolds built their cabins and were 
the first squatter sovereigns on the lands later called Providence. It is 
believed that Thomas Hopkins and sister Frances were of the Arnold 
group that "sat down" at Pawtuxet Falls, in April, 1636. They came to 
stay and stayed and were the first to evidence the work of town building, 
to wit : clearing the forests, building cabins and fences, platting land, 
and making the acquaintance of their near neighbors, the Showamets, 
across the Pawtuxet, whose cornfields were in sight from the Arnold 
homes. Here one sees the practical founders of a town, — men and 



144 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

women who came as freemen, not under banishment, who saw in the 
choice lands along the bay and river their ideal location for homes, in the 
soil and the waters of the bay and river, sources of physical support and 
possible wealth and, in their neighborhood, other attractive sites for 
homes and later, a plantation. Zachariah Rhodes, of Rehoboth, soon 
settled at Pawtuxet and married Joanna Arnold. William Harris, Wil- 
liam Field, and Stukeley Westcott join the Pawtuxet Colony and so, by 
individual and family units, the founding goes on in the Pawtuxet 
country, an integral part of early Providence. Here is in raising a future 
Governor, Benedict Arnold, who for nine years, by two separate inter- 
vals, is the chosen leader of the people, dying in office at the age of 
sixty-three, — "one of the judicious advisors of the Colony." 

In June, 1636, Roger Williams crossed what was then the Pawtucket 
River to Moshassuck, having been advised by Gov. Edward Winslow, of 
Plymouth Colony, that his proposed plantation on the Seekonk (Ten 
Mile) River was in that Colony and that he would not be permitted to 
make his permanent home therein. The reasons for Mr. Williams' depart- 
ure from Massachusetts Colony and his search for a new home are related 
in another chapter of this History. A careful study of all the records 
of the crossing of the Pawtucket River enable us to state with accu- 
racy that four persons were companions in the canoe, with Mr. Wil- 
liams. Their names were : "John Smith, the miller, of Dorchester, also 
banished," William Harris, "then poor and destitute," "Francis IVickcs, 
and Thomas Angcll. Joshua Verin, of Salem, may have been one of the 
party, but it is not probable, although he states in 1650, "You cannot but 
Rem[ember] that we six which cam first should have the first Conven- 
ience," as to lots. Mr. Williams, writing in 1677, is the authority for the 
four persons named, — "These are all I remember." It seems that, as 
Mr. Williams and his companions were rowing their canoe down the 
Pawtucket River, they were hailed from the Moshassuck shore by an 
Indian, with the friendly salutation, "What cheer," — a contemporary 
English greeting, — from which circumstance the Cove north of India 
Point, was called, "What Cheer Cove." Mr. Williams made signs to the 
Indians on the shore that he would meet them on the western side of the 
neck of land which terminates in India and Fox Points, and kept on his 
course, without landing, until passing around Fox Point, and rowing up 
the Moshassuck River, he landed near the famous spring on the west 
shore of the peninsula, about a mile above Fox Point. Concerning the 
salutation, Mr. Williams says, "What cheare Xetop is the generall salu- 
tation of all English towards them. Netop is friend, Netompauog, friends. 
They are exceedingly delighted with salutations in their own language." 
In regard for and in memory of the friendly Indian greeting to Mr. \\'il- 



PROVIDENCE— ITS BEGINNING 145 

Hams, six acres of land were laid out as the site of the Indian welcome 
and called "What Cheer." This property with another lot at Sassafras 
Hill Mr. Williams sold to James Ellis, on the 7th of November, 1657. 

Of the four persons who accompanied Roger Williams to Providence 
we have scant early records. Thomas Angell was born in England in 
1618 and was reputed to be the family servant of Mr. Williams, before 

and after coming to Providence. He married Alice , and was the 

father of eight children. His oldest son John was born in 1646, and mar- 
ried Ruth Field, daughter of John Field. 

William Harris was born about 1610, came to Boston in the ship 
"Lyon," from Bristol, England, in February, 1631, in the company of his 

brother, Thomas and Roger Williams. He married Susannah and 

had five children, Andrew, born 1635. Mary, Susannah, Howlong and 
Toleration. William Harris joined the Pawtuxet company and settled 
on the P.iiWTUXET Purchase, of October, 1638. 

John Smith, the miller, was born in 1595, the date of his coming to 

Boston is not known. He married Alice and had two children, 

John and Elizabeth. He was banished from Boston, in 1635, for "divers 
dangerous opinions," and Mr. Williams accepted him as a companion of 
his exile. He died in 1648, leaving his mill rights and properties to his 
son John, who was town clerk of Providence from 1672 to 1677. John, 
Jr. died in 1682, leaving a widow and ten children. 

Of Francis Wickes or Weeks, little is known. Mr. Williams wrote 
that "at John Smith's desire" he consented "to a poor young fellow, Francis 
Wicks." His name appears in the petition to join the town fellowship 
with an "X" against his name. It also appears in the "Combination" of 
1640, under his mark. Wickes was assigned a home lot on the "Towne 
Street," north of Star street. 

Moshassuck was not a paradise for pioneers. It was a wilderness. 
The woods were inhabited with wild animals, common in southern New 
England. Wild birds, large and small, abounded, and the fresh and salt 
rivers were alive with fish of many kinds. Most of the land was covered 
with a primeval forest growth of the usual types of trees and under- 
growth, as already noted. The hill contour embraced heights less than 200 
feet above the sea level, with the exception of Neutakonkanut. which is 
now 299 feet high. The peninsula of Moshassuck, between the river of 
the same name and the Pawtucket River, was, as now, about two miles 
wide, and was covered with heavy timber and inhabited by bear, deer, 
foxes and other native animals and birds. Tockwotton Hill occupied the 
soutlieastern section and Fox Hill the southwestern of this peninsula, 
while the hill known as Moshassuck, beginning its ascent at Mile End 
B i-io 



146 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

Cove, near Fox Hill, rose to the height of i8o feet, gradually descended 
to be marked by a lower crown called Stampers Hill, in its northwest 
shoulder and ascending again on the northeast to the height of 200 feet 
on Beacon Hill, continues its elevation north, towards and reaching Paw- 
tucket Falls. The whole length of this long range of hills was about five 
miles. East of Moshassuck Hill, for three miles, lay a swampy wilderness, 
through which ran a sluggish brook, which fed Mile End Cove at Fox 
Point, with fresh water,— the Cove itself being at the level of tidewater. 

It was to this Moshassuck peninsula that Roger Williams was drawn 
by the Indian welcome, "What Cheer," on that June day of 1636, and as 
a spring of good water was the first requisite of a place of settlement, he 
was led by his trusty guides to disembark on the east bank of the Mosh- 
assuck River, directly under the crown of Moshassuck Hill. Roger Wil- 
liams' spring, from which he first drank on landing, is a living witness 
and a land-mark of the event. Looking west from the spring, the pil- 
grims saw a body of water, a mile across, into which two small rivers 
were pouring fresh water and silt from the hills, north and west. This 
water they called the "Cove." The river at his feet was the Moshassuck, 
flowing from the north. The western river was the Woonasquatucket, — 
from whence he knew not, while the broad water cove before him was 
bounded on the north by a bluff and sandy hill, and on the west by salt 
marshes and sandy hills, the lands above being concealed in forests on 
the upper slopes. To the southwest, separated from the peninsula by a 
tidewater ford of five hundred feet, was a hill which the Indians called 
Weybosset, and later Mr. Williams was told that beyond that hill was 
Weybosset Plains, and to the south from the Weybosset peninsula, 
stretched the Pequot trail into the Narragansett country, not very far to 
the south. 

Mr. Williams is a stranger in a strange land. He has chosen to be 
an exile in an Indian wilderness rather than be deported to his native land, 
in disgrace. His choice was a wise one, aided as it was by the advice of 
Governor John Winthrop of the Bay Colony, who suggested the Narra- 
gansett Indians as a fair mission field for one of his benevolent and 
Christian ambitions. To this little company, "The world was all before 
them, where to choose their place of rest, and Providence their guide." 
No dream nor thought of founding a town had occupied the mind or 
imagination of Mr. Williams. He sought a place of refuge from the 
Bay, not lands nor a permanent home. Arnold says, "It was not the 
intention of Roger Williams, in seeking a refuge in the wilderness to 
become the founder of a state." Mr. Williams witnesses the same con- 
clusion in a letter written in 1677: 



PROVIDENCE— ITS BEGINNING ■ 147 

My soul's desire was to do the natives good, and to that end to have 
their language, (which I afterwards printed.) and therefore desired not 
to be troubled with English company, yet out of pity I gave leave to Wil- 
liam Harris, then poor and destitute to come along in my company. I 
consented to John .Smith, miller at Dorchester, (banished also,) to go 
with me, and at John Smith's desire, to a poor young fellow, Francis 
Wickes, as also to a lad of Richard Waterman's. These are all I 

remember. ^ 
w 

His "soul's desire" was a noble one. Had he followed it, he would 
have anticipated the splendid work of the Indian apostle, John Eliot, by 
ten years and won the Narragansetts and the Wampanoags to become the 
followers of the teacher of Nazareth. Mr. Williams was a man of attrac- 
tive personality. Aside from his polemic spirit, which did not appear in 
his relations with the natives, his manners were sympathetic, courteous, 
independent. His contact and quite intimate acquaintance with the Wam- 
panoags of Plymouth Colony and their distinguished sachem, Massasoit 
of Sowams, had awakened in Mr. Williams a genuine love for a simple, 
trusting people, and his student habits had aroused in him the purpose to 
know them in and through their language, the key to the mysteries of 
aboriginal life. The winter months of 1636, spent in the wigwam of 
Massasoit at Sowams ( Harrington ). had strengthened the intent of Mr. 
Williams "to do the natives good," and his first place of sojourn, on Mas- 
sasoit's lands, and near the sachem, is complete evidence of his firm plan 
to be an active agent in civilizing and Christianizing the nearby savage 
peoples. The removal from Seekonk to Moshassuck on the advice of 
Governor Winslow of Plymouth, in the early summer months of 1636, 
did not turn him aside from his chosen mission. On the contrary, it 
opened a great, wide, an effectual door for its accomplishment on a larger 
scale, as it brought him into the limits of and close contact with the 
strongest, the richest, the most influential tribe of Indians in New Eng- 
land, whose chief sachems, Canonicus and Miantonomi, were k-nown, 
respected and feared throughout the land. 

It was a great day for Roger Williams when, with four companions, 
he rested at the spring on the banks of the Moshassuck. Freed from the 
land of bondage, the Bay Colony, and also from the surveillance of its 
obedient ally, Plymouth, he was a freeman in reality, in the land of the 
free, without the bounds of the Lord Bishops of his native land and the 
Lord Priests of the Colonies. It is probable that he brought with him in 
his canoe, across the Pawtucket, an axe, a mattock, and a spade. He was 
the first granger on the Moshassuck peninsula, with William Blackstone 
as a granger neighbor at the north, and the Arnold-Carpenter-Hop- 
kins company as far away at the south, none of whom had he ever 
known. We shall never know with certainty the first steps taken at 



148 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

Moshassuck by the men and lads who had built and planted on the north 
bank of the Ten Mile River. Let us assume that they repeated the 
work of April and May, in felling trees, hewing logs, and building a 
log cabin and in planting corn and whatever other seeds their Indian 
neighborhood furnished. We must remember that Mr. Williams was a 
poor man, and that like his poor companions, ho worked in building the 
cabin for shelter, in preparing the soil for planting and in digging clams, 
catching fish and in preparing corn and Indian food products for daily 
consumption. It is probable that Mr. \\'illiams knew the sachems of the 
Xarragansetts at the time of his coming to Moshassuck, in 1636. The 
welcome from What Cheer Rock, on the west bank of the Pawtucket, 
may however have been the introductory salute of the tribal messenger to 
their future benefactor. At least, it was the beginning of a series of 
events that mightily affected the interests of all the New England Col- 
onies. Before entering upon the relations of Mr. Williams to the Narra- 
gansetts, in whose territory he finds himself a dweller, we need to con- 
sider the probable course of action of the men of his company who had 
families, as did he. The single room log cabins of the pioneer days were 
not equal to the accommodation of more than one family. Smith, the 
miller, and Harris, the lawyer and financier, must look out for their own. 
The former found a mill-site for a corn mill less than a quarter of a mile 
away and located house and mill, — one building probably, — on the west 
bank of the Moshassuck, at the falls. Harris, with a keen scent for 
property trails, surveys all the lands and waters and, leaving Mr. Williams 
and the two lads to their Moshassuck clearing, locates on the Pawtuxet, 
and selects the rich meadow and planting lands of the Pocasset Valley. 
He finds the Arnolds at Pawtuxet Falls and between them there grew up 
a business alliance, which shaped the later history of Providence in a 
marked degree. We may assume, without fear of contradiction, that, 
with the approach of the December days of 1636, there were five log 
cabins, with big stone fire places and ovens, on the lands between the 
Pawtucket and Pawtuxet Rivers, each inhabited by a family with two 
or more children, whose future was the warp and woof of early and later 
Providence history, — the Arnolds, Carpenters, Harris, Smiths and Wil- 
liams. The support of a family in a wilderness is a problem of no small 
social magnitude in these later times, but in the first half of the seven- 
teenth century, far apart from the meagre markets of Boston, Plymouth 
and Hartford, the task would seem almost insurmountable, but in reality 
it was an easy one. The log houses were small, containing but one room 
below, and one under the roof, reached by a ladder. The hewn side of 
a log, mounted on legs, furnished seats. Two or three logs, fitted together 
and made fast to the logs of the cabin, formed a table. Beds of leaves, 

1 



PROVIDENCE— ITS BEGINNING 149 

of straw and later of feathers made comfortable places for rest and sleep. 
Wood was at the door at the cost of cutting and a blazing wood fire was 
a blessed comfort for the long winter days and nights. Indian corn, 
beans and squashes, the products of fruitful gardens and fields, were' 
stored away in the autumn, for the winter use, while dried berries added 
sauce for foods. But the all-bountiful supply of meats of wild game, 
animals, wild birds, ducks and geese, was more than equalled by the 
bounties of the sea and the sandy shores, never refusing to give to men 
of their abundance of healthy and .life-prolonging foods. 

A great deal has been written of "Soul and Liberty" and of "The 
First Baptist Church in America." And while almost everybody knows 
something about these and other matters of public concern, very few 
know in what sort of homes these men and their wives and children lived, 
what were their furnishings, what they ate and drank, what clothes they 
wore, how they traveled and dozens of other things which made life 
worth the living in this old town, nigh on to three hundred years ago. 
The dark curtain of mystery hangs between us and our Pilgrim and 
Puntan ancestors, who in their times and ways helped to make life 
more than tolerable in the city and State to-day. Let us see if we can 
draw aside the veil and look in upon the homes and lives of the people of 
Providence, who lived on "Ye Towne Streete," about the year 1640 A D 
while yet the flag of Great Britain floated from the flagstaff on Stamper's 
Hill, and Charles the First still wore his head above his shoulders in the 
Parliament House on the banks of the Thames, in London. 

The first houses in which the families lived were log cabins, built of 
logs hewn with axes and halved together at the corners, something as cob- 
houses are made by children. These cabins may have been about twenty 
feet square, containing but one room and roofed with logs or poles as 
rafters, covered with bark of trees or thatch. A chimney, if the rude 
cabm had one, was either built of logs or stones and plastered with clay 
In the summer, cooking was done out of doors, under the trees and the 
food was eaten from the vessels in which it was cooked, the family sitting 
around on logs or on the groimd. These rude huts had no floors or 
windows, and the beds were often the small branches of evergreen trees 
"Going to bed," was simply lying down on the soft side of the folia-e of 
trees without removing the clothing, but adding blankets or the skins of 
animals in cold weather. It was not an uncommon thing for ten or more 
persons, men, women and children, with a dog or two and a sprinkling of 
cats and maybe a pig, sleeping in the one room of a log cabin, on a cold 
winter s night. 

But the log cabins did not last many years, for soon came framed 
houses, which contained one room, called the "fire room," and a "chamber" 



ijo HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

above, under the roof, reached by a ladder or rude stairs, like a long step- 
ladder. One end of the room was taken up by a huge stone chimney with 
an oven for baking on one side of the enormous fire-place. These fire- 
places were often four feet high, six feet wide and three feet deep, ac- 
commodating logs and fire-wood, four feet long. The single door was 
wide to allow the entrance of logs and large wood for the great fire on 
the stone floor of the fire-place, whose warmth reached the far corners of 
the great room, and whose cheerful blaze furnished all the light of the 
household until the advent of tallow candles, a luxury of the rich, to sup- 
plement the musical flame and the spectral shadows cast by it on the rude 
walls of the "fire room." 

The one-room houses had one or two windows, for light and air, but 
in the absence of window glass, paper saturated with linseed oil was used ; 
translucent, but not transparent. In windy and stormy weather the paper 
panes were protected by closed wooden door-shutters, fastened by hooks 
on the inside. Such windows were in use on Cape Cod as late as 1718. 

The "fire room" was the living room of the whole family during the 
day, but at bedtime the older children mounted the ladder or stairs to 
the chamber, while the father and mother slept in the fire room, with the 
small children stowed away in the most comfortable places, inside or 
outside their parents' sleeping quarters. These may have been what 
Goldsmith describes: "Tlie chest contrived a double debt to pay, a bed 
by night, a case of drawers by day." As the forests abounded in Rhode 
Island and the Providence hills were covered with heavy wood, there was 
no lack of fuel at cheap rates, and the "fire room" and "chamber" never 
lacked for heat, even in the coldest weather, even when ventilation was as 
perfect as open houses and chimneys could make it. 

That we may see with our own eyes the working of a Rhode Island 
home of 1640, let us enter the house of Mr. Roger Williams, on "Ye 
Towne Streete." at the corner of Howland lane. It is near twelve o'clock 
noon, the old-time dinner hour. As we open the door, our nostrils are 
greeted and delighted with the fragrance of boiling clams. Mrs. Williams 
holds her baby, Mercy, on her left arm and is lifting the iron pot of boiled 
clams from the iron crane over the fire and placing it on the stone hearth. 
Mr. Williams is sitting on the long settee, with his two-year old boy. Prov- 
idence, sitting on his lap, while Mary and Freeborn are playing at cats- 
cradles in the chimney corner. Mr. Williams welcomes us with a "God 
bless you, goodman Jones," as we enter, and Mrs. Williams has her 
cordial word of greeting, asking us to take a seat on a three-legged stool 
near the blazing fire. "A providential hour." says Mr. Williams, "God, 
in His great mercy, has granted us wonderful blessings in this new land 
of religious freedom, in a bountiful supply of clams and other fishes. 



PROVIDENCE— ITS BEGINNING 151 

Let us thank Him before we dine." Standing before the kettle of clams, 
Mr. Williams asked the Heavenly Father's blessing on the rich provisions 
of His bounty in the wilderness, and then, lifting the pot of clams placed 
it on a long oak bench in the middle of the "fire room." and drew the 
settee in front of it for Mrs. Williams, himself and the children, while his 
guest sat opposite, astride the stool. On removing the cover, a luscious 
repast of clams, mussels, oysters and scollops, taken that morning by Mr. 
Williams from the cove banks at the mouth of the Moshassuck river. 
There is not a knife or fork in the house, and only a few wooden plates, 
on which the shell-fish are placed, when scooped from the pot by a long 
wooden spoon. The first course is clam broth, and all drink from the same 
source (the iron pot), using large clam shells for spoons. The clams 
now gratify and satisfy our appetities, each adult preparing his own dish, 
with a large loaf of Indian corn bread, from which each breaks the portion 
he desires. There is no butter, for there is not a cow or a goat in Provi- 
dence Plantations. There is no tea or cofifee, only the pure spring water 
from the great town spring, at the foot of the hill, and all drink to quench 
nature's normal thirst. Clams and bread and water, — water and bread 
and clams, — our table an oak bench, our dishes only wooden plates, our 
hands and fingers, the tools of our appetites, — a full, delightful meal and 
a grateful heart, followed by health and sleep, "of light digestion bred." 
This was a sample dinner at the home of the Founder of Providence, 
nearly three centuries ago. 

Before we say "Good Bye" and "Thanks" for our dinner, let us note 
that there were no chairs in the room, no bedstead, no desk, no books, 
except a Bible, no tools, except an axe, a gim and a spade ; no dishes, ex- 
cept wooden plates or trenchers, wooden spoons, and an iron pot ; no 
carpet on the floor, but in its stead, sand from the river bank ; no horse, 
no cart, and what was worse, no money to buy any or all of these things. 
Such was the home condition of Roger Williams and most of his band for 
a number of years after coming to Providence. 

The fact is, each Providence family was its own mechanic, making the 
rude chests, tables, settees, bedsteads, and other furniture that stood on 
the sanded floors. Chairs were a luxury, and few families had more than 
one or two for more than fifty years from the founding. John Smith, the 
miller, who died in 1681, a man of note and property, having a two-room 
house, had "foure old chaires," value one shilling and six pence; three 
"bedstuds," "a chest with ye Booke of Marter's in it," 15 shillings; "An 
old Bible Some lost & some of it torne," 9 pence; "four old spoones." i 
shilling; two guns, I pound i shilling; "two spinning wheels & old cardes," 
7 shillings ; etc., etc. The total value of his household stufT was 11 pounds, 
18 shillings and 6 pence, or about $60. 



152 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

The personal estate of William Harris, of Pawtuxet, valued January, 
1681, gives two chairs, i shilling; i "bed studd," 3 shillings; 2 wheels, 4 
shillings; 4 wooden platters, i shilling 6 pence; 6 trenchers, 4 pence; 2 
brass kettles, 15 shillings; "2 barrills of winter sider with ye barrills," 16 
shillings; "2 barrills of summer sider with ye barrills," 12 shillings; a 
warming pan, 3 shillings ; "a saddle & stirru])s, £ i ;" "A gray maare & a 
Coult running in pautuxett Woodes, £2, los. ;" i young cow, i pound, 13 
shillings ; i old cow, 2 pounds, etc., etc. 

John Whipple was an inn-keeper at the foot of Constitution Hill 
(died, 1685), and he had only "three chaires & a salt box," i shilling, 4 
pence ; i "Bed-stud," "7 pewter platters & trenchers ;" and i' "yoake of 
oxen," 6 pounds. The "wearing apparill" of the inventory was valued 
at 2 pounds. Volume IV of the Early Records of the town of Providence 
furnishes interesting reading for those who want to know more about the 
belongings of "City people," in Roger Williams' time. 

In daily cooking over the wood fire on the blazing hearth the iron 
skillett for frying and the iron pot for boiling were the chief articles, and 
these came from across the sea as did the pewter plates and platters, the 
successors of the wooden trenchers, knives and spoons. Wood, iron, 
"puter" and brass articles are named in the family possessions, but not an 
article of silver or carved furniture before Philip's War (1675). For 
food, the first-comers ate of the bounties of nature as found in the wild 
game in the woods, the shell fish in marvelous abundance on the shores 
and the fin-fish in equal abundance in the rivers and Narragansett Bay. 
Deer were plentiful. In the summer, berries, grapes and wild fruits 
abounded in the woods and on the plains, and these fruits were preserved 
and dried for winter use. The Indians taught the Pilgrims how to plant 
corn and beans, dropping the kernels in the hill and adding a herring to 
fertilize it, after the shoots had come out of the ground. 

For times of revelry a bowl of smoking-hot punch was mixed which 
added hilarity to the sombre Pilgrim life. Before Myles Standish went 
out on his Indian raid in Weymouth, he selected eight men and sought 
final inspiration in the bowl of whiskey punch. 

" 'Twas on a dreary winter's eve, the night was closing dim. 

When old Myles Standish took the bowl and filled it to the brim ; 
The little captain stood and stirred the posset with his sword, 
And all his sturdy men-at-arms were ranged about the board." 

In Massachusetts, the early laws prohibited the sale of intoxicating 
liquors, and in 1667 cider was included, and strong measures were taken 
to keep strong drinks of all kinds from the Indians. 

The first wine glasses of record in Providence belonged to John 
Crawford (died March 17, 1719) and to Gabriel Bernon (died February 



PROVIDENCE— ITS BEGINNING 153 

I) 1736)- John Crawford had "divers spoones, porringers, cuppes, pepper 
boxes and graters of silver," vakied at thirty pounds, and many other 
luxuries for that day. (Dorr). 

In Massachusetts, so early as 1638. the smoking of tobacco, then 
called "drinking" it, was forbidden on the highway, or out of doors within 
a mile of a dwelling house, or while at work in the fields. 

In 1666, the General Assembly of the Colony "Ordered that no vic- 
tualling house or victualler sell liquors without lycence from the Magis- 
trate," etc., "and that none shall sell liquors on the first day (Sunday) to 
English Indians," etc. Most of the settlers, however brought with them 
across the sea. the vivid memories of the English ale-houses, and as soon 
as they could afford ale and beer or stronger liquors, they were in use by 
our Providence ancestors, and the ancient sideboard, with its store of fam- 
ily liquors, of which all partook more or less freely, was a part of the 
furnishing of the homes of ministers, officers, and people, as soon as con- 
ditions would allow. Total abstinence from liquors in Providence was 
at first a necessity. Their use was later a lu.xury, and later still they 
became a common beverage for the common people. This was the evolu- 
tion of the drink-habit during the first century of Providence. 

As to clothing of the settlers, what they wore and brought with them 
over the sea stood them in good stead for many a day, possibly in some 
cases as long as the forty-year wear of the shoes and blankets of the 
children of Israel in their desert wanderings. These old clothes were 
supplemented for winter use by the furs of the wild animals, fo.x, squir- 
rel, deer and bear skins, that made warm and durable garments. As soon 
as fla.x could be raised and cured, linen thread wheels were brought from 
England to convert the material into thread and then came in the home 
made hand looms for weaving linen cloth for clothing, sheets, and table 
cloths. Dorr says there were a number of the spinning wheel looms in 
1740, following the flax wheel after the introduction of sheep into the 
colonies, the date of which followed Philip's War, several years, — how 
many, we cannot state. 

The first razor which came under the Court of Probate was owned 
by Stephen Harding, who died May 31, 1680. The fashion of wearing 
the beard was well nigh universal, which, with the long hair and broad- 
rimmed Pilgrim hat, gave a venerable air, even to youth. Razors did not 
come into common use until the eighteenth century, so that to picture 
Roger Williams and his associates with shaven faces is an artistic false- 
hood, which should be speedily corrected. Looking-glasses were not often 
in use in Providence before 1720 (Dorr), although Resolved Waterman 
had "a warming pan and a looking glass ;" value, 12 shillings, in 1670. As 
glasses are essential to clean shaving, it is probable that our ancestors 
wore their hair and beard after nature's fashion for nearly a century. 



154 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

Accustomed as we are to fine streets and fine country roads with 
every convenience and luxury of travel, by horse-drawn vehicles, by cars 
and automobiles, it is a difficult matter to picture this beautiful town and 
State covered with forests of heavy timber and only traversed by foot- 
paths or trails, first made by the Indians and afterwards adopted for use 
by the white people. These paths originally connected Indian settlements 
or villages and usually ran along the high and dry sections of land, avoid- 
ing water courses, except at easy fording places, where the water was 
shallow. These old trails were well-worn, as the Indians usually traveled 
in single file, on their journeys from place to place. Roger Williams and 
his six companions walked the old path from Plymouth to Sowams and 
thence to Seekonk in 1636. His party brought with them only the articles 
they or their Indian friends and guides could carry on their shoulders or 
backs. Moving heavy goods was impossible, except by water, and the 
carriage of light baggage for forty miles through the woods was no hoH- 
day afifair. Mr. Williams tells us that he was tossed about for several 
months in the severe winter of 1636, "not knowing what bread or bed 
did mean."' Wagons, carts, horses or oxen were not seen in the town of 
Providence for years after the settlement, and John Clawson's wheel- 
barrow ( 1661 ) is the first wheel vehicle we have record of. As the high- 
ways were only foot-paths through the woods, the usual method of travel 
was by log canoes and boats, fastened to shore supports by bolts and rings. 
It is said that in laying the foundation of the Franklin Building, on 
Market Square,about 1820, a rock was found with a ring and bolt attached, 
showing that the high water mark was originally as high as the east side 
of the Square. Mr. Williams usually went to his Prudence Island pos- 
sessions and to his trading house at Wickford by sea, and on one of his 
voyages his canoe was upset, his goods lost, and he barely saved his life, 
(Dorr). 

Considering the fact that Xarragansett Bay with its tributaries was 
the main highway of the early settlers, and that most of the travel and 
transportation was by water, it was most fitting that the Assembly early 
adopted an anchor as the fit symbol of the Colony. As the people had no 
English coin, but only "cows, cattle, tobacco, and the like," to pay for 
goods, it is easy to see that a transfer of a bushel of corn to Newport or 
Boston by man-power, in payment for a cheese or a wheel-barrow, was a 
business transaction that was no "boy's play." Our town records do not 
tell us when the first roads were laid out and built, nor when cows, goats, 
pigs, oxen and horses were first imported into Rhode Island from the Bay 
State. It is beHeved that neat cattle came first and that the settlers raised 
their own oxen. Then came the home-made carts of a rude style and 
then the trails were widened to the width of the ox-cart. 



PROVIDENCE— ITS BEGINNING 155 

In 1663 the old records tell of a "foote path" from the town of Prov- 
idence to Pavvtuxet. Later highways were ordered towards Pawtucket 
and Rehoboth and Blackstone and Louisqiiissuck (1682), but were not 
made until a later day. In fact North Main and South Main streets 
(The Towne Street) were not located until 1704, when it was ordered 
that it be "four poles wide." Even when highways began to be made and 
improved after Philip's War, gates and bars were erected at the entrance 
of different farms. Horseback riding was the first and for a long time the 
usual method of long distance for three generations from 1636. Madam 
Knight, in her journey to New York, traveling under escort of "The 
King's Post," was two days on the road from Boston to Providence, in 
1704, while Mrs. Jacob Whitman, in 1760, relates that she left Danielson, 
Connecticut, on Tuesday and reached Providence, her home, at Turk's 
Head, Providence, Saturday afternoon of that week. 

People who build towns and States are not bookish nor book-worms, 
and it is especially so in an age when books are few. The Pilgrims had 
few books and little time to read those they had. In the inventories of 
wills prior to 1710, eleven Bibles are enumerated. Thomas Walling had 
"Two bibles, two spinning wheels and one P of Cards," 14 shillings. 
(The cards were probably for carding wool). William Harris, of Paw- 
tuxet. the scholar and polemic (died, 168 1 ), left "i Dixonarey," "The 
London Despencetorrey," "The Chirurgeons Mate," "Norwood's Tri- 
angles," "i Bible," "Contemplations Morall and devine," and "A great 
Bible at Mary Burdin's house." The valuation of this large library was 
less than $10. His daughter. Howlong Harris, had three books, "Cookes 
Comentarey upon Littleton, £1," "The Compleeat Clarke, 8 s," and "The 
Touchstone of Wills, 2 s." Miss Harris also had for light reading, 
"Naturs Explication," "Ye treatise of Faith," and "ye effect of warr." 
For her gayer hours she had "Ye Gentleman Jockey," "Ye Gospell 
Preacher," "New England Memoriall," "Ye Method of Phissich," and 
"A Short introduction of Ye Grammer." 

One of Mr. Harris's books, styled "Lambaths Perambulations," had 
been loaned to Mr. Francis Brinley, of Newport, and "Severall bookes'' 
had been loaned to John Whipple and to John Pocock. 

Thomas Olney, Sr., had "Att the kittchen, one Bible," and "3 old 
pieces of Bible in ye Parlor," also "Ainsworths Anotations, A Concord- 
ance & fishers Ashford Dispute," value, i pound, 16 shillings. 

Benjamin Greene (1715) had "two Bibles, one Testament and one 
Hodders ARethinatick," value, 15 shillings. 

James Andrew had "one Bible," 7 shillings: "a cradle" (10 s.), and 
"one Hogshead of Rum," 14 pounds. 



156 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

Obadiah Browne (1716), "Seaunteene Cows," "two Bookes," "a 
paire of Silver Shoo buckles & eleven black dogs." The inventory covers 
five pages and is valued at £^77. — The wealthiest man in the Colony, 
probably. 

That such a life was of nature's ordaining was attested by the fer- 
tility of family life and the great longevity of many of the pioneers for 
several generations. John Smith, the miller, had two children, thirteen 
grandchildren and sixty-five great-grandchildren. Thomas Angell had 
eight children and forty-two grandchildren. William Harris had five 
children, sixteen grandchildren and about fifty great-grandchildren. Wil- 
liam Arnold had four children, thirty-five grandchildren and one hundred 
and twenty-one great-grandchildren, with the issue of sixteen grandchild- 
ren not reported. William Carpenter had eight children and thirty-one 
grandchildren. Roger Williams had six children, thirty-one grandchild- 
ren and fifty-two great-grandchildren, with the issue of eighteen grand- 
children not reported. And these six original families brought up thirty- 
three children, saw them, with few exceptions, married and the parents of 
one hundred and sixty-eight children. Here was vitality, virility and 
fertility, nourished and transmitted in the midst of early conditions and 
privations to which the poorest in modern days are strangers. 

"Beautiful for situation, the joy of the whole earth," as Jerusalem of 
old, was the Moshassuck country to which these early families had been 
led. At the head of a tidewater bay, with an ebb and flood of six feet, 
the lands bisected by a river, navigable to the "Cove" for vessels of six 
feet draught, near the influx of four fresh water rivers, whose flow from 
the unexplored hills, north and west, was constant and of great volume, 
the power of which was at once noted and put to practical use at Moosh- 
assuck and Pawtuxet Falls, with forest lands of the finest timber, under- 
laid by deposits of bog iron ore, mines of lime and quarries of slate and 
granite, rich river bottoms for grazing and hay and salt grasses of certain 
annual productivity along the shores of tidewater, — these were some of 
the fortunate conditions that the new settlers found at Moshassuck and 
its environs. As clearings were made and surveys were carried on, it 
was found that a seven-hill town and city was prefigured in the contour 
of the Providence of a later day, for we have still with us. unlevelled 
by nature or art, Tockwotten. Prospect, Beacon, Constitution, Smith, Fed- 
eral and Xeutakonkanut, while Fox, Weybosset and Solitary Hills, of the 
founders' days now lie buried in the mud and sands of the early flats of 
the Cove, and Harbor. Beacon Hill, 200 feet in height, was so named 
because on its crest stood a tall pine, at least 80 feet in height, on the top 
of which, the United States Government, in an early day of the last 



PROVIDENCE— ITS BEGINNING 157 

century, erected a huge tin beacon, easily visible from the Ocean, and used 
in triangulating and marking the southern New England coast lines. It's 
a pity that we have lost Moshassuck Hill, in name, even though the height 
still lives under the name of Prospect, a reminder of the beacon fires 
built on its summit in Revolutionary days. Smith, the miller, survives in 
Smith's Hill, which may later be lost in Capitol Hill, while Smith street 
will still perpetuate this most useful and ubiquitous name. Constitution 
Hill and Federal Hills are reminders of political events in State and Fed- 
eral history, while Tockwotton and Neutakonkanut stand as permanent 
reminders of Indian days. Sassafras Hill, the name a French importation, 
will soon disappear in the nearby newly-made harbor lands, but the 
locality will always be pointed out as the dividing bound between ancient 
Providence and Pawtuxet of 1638. Broad Cove, Muddy Dock and the 
Muddy Cove have ceased to be in name and almost in memory, but we 
shall have with us, it is to be hoped to the latest period of Providence 
history, the names of Pawtucket, Pawtuxet, Moshassuck, Wonasqua- 
tucket, Mashapaug, Pocasset, Canonicus, Canonchet, Weybosset, Mianto- 
nomi, Niantic, Narragansett, Ninigret, Pequot, Pontiac, Pumgansett, 
Samoset. Seekonk, Stampers, and What Cheer, as memorials of a great 
and vanished race. At some unknown date, Mr. Williams recognizing a 
divine guidance to this remarkable section of New England, calls the 
lands on which he had located "New Providence," and uses that name 
for a year or two, when we find his letters dated at "Providence," a most 
appropriate name for a wonder-working experience and a providential 
deliverance. Later still, after the settlement at Warwick in 1643, these 
northern peoples unite in calling their lands "Providence Plantations." 
Of the April (1636) immigrants, the first occupants of Providence, 
a clearer and fuller record may be made. William Arnold, the senior of 
the pilgrim party, was born in Dorset county, England, June 24, 1587, 
being in the sixth generation from Roger Arnold, of a distinguished 
English family. William (6) married Christian Peake (born 1583). 
Four children were born to them. Their first child, Elizabeth, born 
November 23, 1611, married William Carpenter. Benedict, born December 
21, 1615, married, December 17, 1640, Damaris Westcott, who gave him 
nine children. William Arnold, wife and four children and son-in-law, 
William Carpenter, sailed from Dartmouth, England, May i, and arrived 
in New England, June 24, 1635, going first to Hingham, Massachusetts, 
and coming to Moshassuck in the spring of 1636, arriving, as stated by 
Benedict Arnold, April 20, 1636. The Arnold family, including the son- 
in-law, William Carpenter, numbered seven persons. There are good 
reasons for stating that Thomas and Frances Hopkins, children of his 
sister Joanna, who married William Hopkins, were of the immigrant 
party. 



158 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

A family census of Moshassuck and Pawtuxet, for September i, 
1636, would contain the following names, with dates of their arrival : 

1. William Blackstone, 1634. 

2. William Arnold, age 49, April 20, 1636. 

3. Christian Arnold, wife of W. A., April 20, 1636. 

4. William Carpenter, son-in-law, age about 28, April 20, 1636. 

5. Elizabeth Carpenter, wife of W. C, 25, April 20, 1636. 

6. Benedict Arnold, son of W. A., 21, April 20, 1636. 

7. Joanna Arnold, daughter of W. A., 18, April 20, 1636. 

8. Stephen Arnold, son of W. A., 14, April 20. 1636. 

9. Thomas Hopkins, nephew of W. A., April 20, 1636. 

10. Frances Hopkins, niece of W. A., April 20, 1636. 

11. Roger Williams, 31, June, 1636. 

12. Mary Williams (wife), June, 1636. 

13. Mary Williams, daughter of R. W., 3, June, 1636. 

14. Freeborn Williams, daughter of R. W., i, June, 1636. 

15. Thomas Angell, 18, June, 1G36. 

16. Francis Wickes, June, 1636. 

17. John Smith, 41, June, 1636. 

18. Alice Smith, wife of John, June, 1636. 

19. John Smith, Jr., son of John, June, 1636. 

20. Elizabeth Smith, daughter of John, June, 1636. 

21. William Harris, 26, June, 1636. 

22. Susannah Harris, wife of William, June, 1636. 

23. Andrew Harris, son of W. H., June, 1636. 

24. Joshua Verin, June, 1636. 

25. Jane Verin, wife of Joshua, probably before September i ; date 

unknown. 
Concerning the dates of arrival of other persons or families there are 
no public records. The Genealogical Dictionary of Rhode Island, written 
with the most scrupulous and conscientious regard for truth and accuracy, 
is not an infallible guide. The dates of events at Providence, bearing 
the years 1636-7-8, should be examined with great care, as the early 
accounts bear no year dates. The date of the deed of Miantonomi to 
Roger Williams, March 24, 1638, is the first reliable public record at 
Providence. Every other admits of challenge for proof. It is full time 
that a halt be called on false dates and false and exaggerated statements 
as to Providence and Rhode Island history. The people want the truth. 
People, a policy and possessions constitute the founding of a town. Until 
March, 1638, the only element of founding a town at Moshassuck, rested 
in a colluvies of various opinionists, near one hundred in number, cabined 
in a wilderness, and waiting for some providential turn of the wheel of 



PROVIDENCE— ITS BEGINNING 159 

fortune. Roger Williams is one of the group, without a fixed purpose 
or policy. As the best educated man of the body of scattered frontiers- 
men in a strange, new land, he is naturally looked to as "guide, phil- 
osopher and friend." He cultivates an acquaintance with the Narragan- 
sett chiefs and is promised lands, but does not gain possession. The 
people in and about Moshassuck want to own lands and build permanent 
homes, but two years slip by and no one holds a square foot of land as 
owner. Mr. Williams is a squatter on lands claimed by the English King, 
but really owned and occupied by the Indian tribe. Mr. Williams, in his 
letters to Gov. Winthrop, calls the place Providence, where he lives on 
the banks of the Moshassuck, on the west slope of Moshassuck Hill. The 
Arnolds and their neighbors call their place Pawtuxet, four miles to the 
south. The third planting time, in the spring of 1638, is near and the 
people become restless for land and they talk and say hard things about 
their needy condition and many blame Mr. Williams that, with a gift at 
his hands, he has not accepted it. He has told the people of the promised 
generosity of Miantonomi, but has delayed the acceptance of the prom- 
ised lands. Why a delay of more than two years? We do not know 
exactly when the promise was made. We do know that Mr. Williams 
has done nothing in the way of ownership, and the consequent benefits 
to the people by a fair division of the lands has not occurred. The answer 
to that inquiry is not left wholly to conjecture, for the coming of Dr. John 
Clarke, William Coddington, and others to Moshassuck in the winter of 
1637-8, helps to solve the problem, as discussed in another chapter. Our 
own opinion is that Mr. Williams lived for nearly two years in doubt as 
to his own course of action, until re-enforced by the strength, solidarity 
and unity of the new migration from P)Oston. When Dr. Clarke and his 
associates had decided to purchase Aquidneck, Mr. Williams felt secure 
in accepting the gift of lands at Moshassuck. Between Mr. Williams, the 
writer of the two documents, properly called Memorandum in each in- 
stance, and Miantonomi and Canonicus, chiefs of the Narragansetts, two 
life estates were created, on March 24, 1638. The history of Providence 
and its people as the possessors of property, began on Saturday, the 
twenty-fourth day of March, 1638, nearly two years from the date of 
William Arnold's arrival. On that day, at Narragansett, near the present 
village of Wickford, in North Kingstown, Roger Williams met the two 
great sachems of the Narragansetts, Canonicus and Miantonomi, prob- 
ably in the wigwam of the old chief. Mr. Williams had written two 
papers, each called a "Memorandum," to be signed by the two sachems, 
in the presence of witnesses. 

One estate vested the great Island of Aquidneck in "Mr. Codding- 
ton and his friends united unto him." The other, a life estate, was a 



i6o HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

sale unto Roger Williams of "ye lands and meadowes upon the two fresh 
rivers, called movvshassuck and vvanasquatucket." This Memorandum 
reads as follows : 

At Xauhiggansick, the 24TH of the first Month Comonly 
CALLED March in the second yeare of our plantation or planting 
AT Moshansick, or Providence, Memorandum, That we Caunannicus 
and Meiauantunnomi, the two chiefe sachims of Nanheggansick, haveing 
Two years since sold unto Roger Williams the lands and meaddowes upon 
tJie two fresh Rivers called mowshausuck & wanasquatuckqut, doe now by 
these presents Establish & Confirme the bounds of those lands from the 
Rivers & Fields of Pautuckett, The great hill of Xotaquonuckanet on the 
norwest and the towne of Maushappog on the West. As also in Consid- 
eration of the many Kindnesses & Services he hath continually for us both 
with our friends of Massachusett, as also at Quinikticutt, And Apaum 
or Plimouth, wee doe freely give unto him all that land from those 
Rivers Reaching to Pautuxett River, as also the Grasse & meaddowes 
upon Pautuxett River, In witnes where of wee have hereunto set our 
hands. 

Ye Marke OF (X) Caunounicus. 
Ye Marke of (X) Miantunomi. 
In the presence of : 

Ye Marke of ( X ) Sota.\sh. 

Ye Marke of (X) Assotemewett. 

At the bottom of the page of this manuscript document, below the 
first Memo., appears the following: 

1639, Md 3 mon 9 die this was all againe Confirmed by Mianti- 
nomy he acknowledged this his act and hand up the streame of Paw- 
tuckett and Pawtuxett without limitts wee might have for our use of 
Cattell. 

Witnes hereof Roger Williams, Benedict Arnold. E. E. 

It is impossible to translate, with literal accuracy, the two mpmor- 
anda, as will appear by the photographic reproduction of the original, but 
the early transcripts are undoubtedly substantially correct. It is well 
understood that Mr. Thomas James wrote the second Memorandum, 
while the first is the well-known hand of Mr. Williams. Mr. Williams 
admitted the signature as his own to the second writing, and the date 
to be 1639. These two Memoranda, dated respectively March 24, 1638, 
and May 9, 1639, are the only documents or writings which Mr. \Mlliams 
received from the chiefs of the Narragansetts, giving a title to lands at 
Moshassuck, as this territory was called by the Indians. The quality of 
these two instruments we have discussed in another chapter. It is only 
necessary to state here that neither would stand the test of a legal trans- 
fer, either under English law of that day or of American jurisprudence 



PROVIDENCE— ITS BEGINNING i6i 

of any day. Allowing the most liberal interpretation to the Memoranda 
as conferring a life-estate on Mr. Williams, with no reference to heirs 
and assigns, our main purpose in this chapter is to define as exactly as 
one can, the bounds of the territory included by the conveyance, although 
there is a great doubt whether either party had exact knowledge or under- 
standing of the boundary terminals. Two of the boundary lines are fixed 
beyond dispute, — the Pawtucket River on the east and the Pawtuxet 
River on the south. In this connection we may assume that the Pawtucket 
River (alias Seekonk ) bore that name as far to the south as the entrance 
of the F'awtuxet, that is to Namquit and Bullock's Points of modern days. 
The northern boundary line seems to be pretty clearly established by a 
quotation from "The Sovereign Plaister," jiage yT,. Vol. II, Providence 
Records : 

Wee declare that or bounds are limited in our Towne Euidence and 
by us stated about 20 years since and Knowe to be the Riuer and fields of 
patuckit suger loafe hill Bewits Prow obseruation Rock absolute Swampe 
oxfoord and hipses Rock & the men that were opointed to set it we; e 
Chad Browne Hugh Bu Gre Dexter and Will Wickenden. 

The "fields of Pawtuckit" include Central Falls, thence in a westerly 
direction to the northwest corner of Absolute Swamp, some of which is 
included in Quinsnicket or Lincoln Park. The Break-Neck road from 
Ouinsnicket Station on the Woonsocket trolley road to Scott's Pond is, 
as near as can be now determined, the upper line of Moshassuck of 1638. 

Our chief difficulty lies along the south and west lines. What was 
the length of the southern line along the Pawtuxet? The Memorandum 
of 1638 gives "ye great hill of Notquonchanet on ye northwest and the 
towne of Maushapogue on ye west." The hill is well known as Neuta- 
konkanut, now in the tenth ward of Providence. Mashapaug was the 
name of an Indian "towne" or rather village settlement, on the present 
site of Auburn, in the city of Cranston. We may regard Absolute Swamp 
as the northwest bound of Moshassuck and Mashapaug village (Auburn) 
as the southwest, with Neutakonkanut Hill as an intermediary bound, 
the connecting lines on the west being more or less direct, adjustable at 
the convenience of parties in interest. In 1666, Mr. Williams confirmed 
the bounds as stated in the original Memorandum of 1638, interpreting 
those bounds to include "the lands and meadows upon the two iTresh 
rivers, called Moosbasick and Wanasquatucket." A three-mile line to the 
north, the west and the south of the State House, Providence, would prac- 
tically include the bounds of early Moshassuck. If we want a natural 
river bound on the southwest, we may accept the Pocasset River, from 
its union with the Pawtuxet, to Hipses (Hesperus) Rock, on the west of 
the big hill, Neutakonkanut. 

R I-U 



i62 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

Trouble began (and begins with us still) in the proper interpreta- 
tion of the second memorandum. But let us see what Mr. Williams pro- 
poses to do and does do with the twenty square miles of land, more or less, 
which the generous sachems have donated to him. From the status of a 
poor man, living in part on the bounty of friends, he has become, sud- 
denly, the richest land holder in New England. Two opinions were held 
at this time ( 1638) as to the real ownership of Moshassuck or Provi- 
dence. Mr. Williams, in a letter to the town, long after, said, "They (the 
lands) were mine own as truly as any man's coat on his back." It was 
contended, on the other hand, by the chief settlers at Moshassuck, that 
Mr. Williams acted as the agent of the squatters and that an equitable 
division was due them. The theoretical question may never be settled, 
except as its solution may be inferred from the action of Mr. Williams, 
under date of October 8, 1638, when he conveyed "unto my loving friends 
and neighbors. Stukeley Westcott. William Arnold, Thomas James, 
Robert Cole, John Greene, John Throckmorton, William Harris, William 
Carpenter, Thomas Olney, Francis Weston, Richard Waterman, Ezekiel 
Holyman, and such others as the major part of us shall admit unto the 
same fellowship of vote with us," all the lands included in the sachem's 
gift. The act of transfer validates the claim. However, there still existed 
a lurking suspicion in the form and contents of the "Initial Deed,"— an 
absolutely worthless paper,— that, later, something might turn up in Mr. 
Williams' favor, by which he might come again into full possession of 
his "Promised Land." The insertion of the term, "My loving friends 
and neighbors," would naturally be interpreted to mean that the trans- 
action was one of mutual gratification and that Mr. Williams held the 
most cordial relations with the co-founders of the town. On the other 
hand, the beneficiaries of the "Initial Deed" did not dare to demand a 
substantial transfer, lest they should lose the nominal hold they had on 
the lands. Morally, Mr. Williams was held to his agreement, not legally, 
and all the land transactions at Providence, from October, 1638, to 
December 20, 1661, bore the taint of the unlegal act of Mr. Williams as 
well as the limitations of the life estate conveyed to Mr. Williams by the 
sachems' deed of March 24, 1638. The town of Providence, or the Pro- 
prietary accepted the deed of 1661, and had it entered on their records, 
making it an affirmation of the titles held under the "Initial Deed," and 
assuming in it a freehold estate, which it was not, in fact, unless adverse 
possession had made it such. In 1666, Mr. Williams legalized the "Initial 
Deed," which created the Proprietary Estate, conveying to twelve persons, 
twelve-thirteenths of his lands at Moshassuck. This act, after a lapse of 
twenty-eight years since the original, confirmed and reaffirmed the Pro- 
prietary titles, and silenced the complaints of dissatisfied land-holders, 
within the limits of the Memorandum of March, 1638. 



PROVIDENCE— ITS BEGINNING 163 

A singular act followed the creation of the Proprietary, which con- 
sisted of Stukeley Westcott, William Arnold, Thomas James, Robert 
Cole, John Greene, John Throckmorton, William Harris, William Car- 
penter, Thomas Olney, Francis Weston, Richard Waterman, Ezekiel Holy- 
man and Roger Williams, thirteen in all. On the eighth day of October, 
1638, the thirteen proprietors made a division of the lands described in 
the "Initial Deed," into two parts, known in the records as "The Grand 
Purchase of Providence," and "The Pawtuxet Purchase." "The Provi- 
dence Purchase" remained as a Proprietary, although it was usually called 
a "Town." "The Pawtu.xet Purchase" was divided equally between the 
thirteen proprietors, each agreeing to pay to Mr. Williams an equal pro- 
portion of twenty pounds for the lands in that division. Here we iind a 
wheel within a wheel. Thirteen proprietors, liaving covenanted to a fixed 
rule in the disposal of their lands, now unanimously agree to sell to each 
other a large tract of the Proprietary, to be divided among themselves 
in individual holdings, in fee simple. "The Pawtuxet Purchase" was 
bounded on the south by the Pawtuxet River, on the east by the Paw- 
tucket River. On the north by a hne from Sassafrax Point to Neutakon- 
kanut Hill and Hipses' Rock, crossing Mashapaug Pond in its course. 
The west line, we may limit by the Pocasset River, as it was understood 
at that time, but modified by the Second Memorandum of 1639. The 
territory within these bounds was about four miles from east to west and 
two miles from north to south — eight square miles or over five thousand 
acres of land. Divided among thirteen purchasers, the transaction gave 
to each about 400 acres of land for a consideration of less than ten dollars. 
There is no wonder that Judge Staples should declare that "great dis- 
sensions and difficulties grew out of this division," for it was not only 
scandal-working in its nature, but unjust to all other bona fide squatters 
at Providence. This transaction, the Pawtuxet Purchase, lets in a flood 
of light on the first acts of a real business character of Mr. Williams 
with his Associates, some of whom he calls "loving friends and neigh- 
bors." Mr. Williams held his life-estate in the Moshassuck lands, in his 
own right, from March 24, 1638. until October 8, 1638. There are no 
current records at Providence of the events of that period. \\e may 
assume that the disposition of his newly acquired estate was the burning 
question of the time, for it was true that nigh one hundred persons were 
dwelling in log shanties at Moshassuck, waiting the hour when they could 
call the parcel of ground on which they had located, their own. The 
Arnolds had been squatters at Pawtuxet for 30 months. William Harris, 
wife Susannah and son Andrew, co-occupants of Pawtuxet lands with the 
Arnolds and Carpenters, and a companion of Mr. Williams in his flight to 
Providence, were land-hungry, demanding a share in the Williams legacv. 



i64 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

We may safely assume that all the dwellers between the Pawtucket and 
the Pawtuxet were soliciting or demanding lands. Several courses were 
open to Mr. Williams. Portsmouth had set an example by offering the 
lands on Aquidneck at two shillings an acre, payable in installments into 
the public treasury for public uses, thereby relieving the people from taxes. 
The same could have been done by Mr. Williams. He could have created 
a trust estate for the benefit of his family or for the present or future 
benefit of the town of Providence. A single letter to Governor Wmthrop, 
undated, shows the working of Mr. Williams' mind in this period of 
mental conflict. It is a singular combination of autocracy, aristocracy 
and proprietorship. The proprietary was a corporate trust in perpetuity ; 
the aristocracy was the determination of the membership of the Propri- 
etary by the original recipients of the trust ; the autocracy rested in the 
suggestion of Air. Williams that no one should be received into member- 
ship not acceptable to him. In this letter no reference is made as to con- 
science liberty or any of its aliases, as it appears by exclusion under the 
term, "only in civil things" in the Richard Scott petition for member- 
ship among "masters of families," incorporated. We must wait forty 
years for evidence conclusive as to his indecision relative to his disposi- 
tion of his original estate. In 1677, William Harris, in his Declaration 
against the Town of Providence, "chargeth Roger Williams for taking the 
land of Providence in his ozen name, zvhich should have been taken in the 
name of those which came up -with him. * * * Williams zvriting 
initials in his deed was a mere pretence of haste; that he promised a more 
formal deed, but that when one zcas drawn, he refused to sign it." 

In his answer to Harris, Mr. Williams sets forth clearly and most 
emphatically his reasons for his acts in 1638: 

As to my selling them Pawtuxet & Providence, it is not true that I 
was such a fool as to sell either of them especially as W. H. (William 
Harris) saith "like an Halter in a market, who gives most." The truth in 
the holy presence of the Lord is this. William Harris (W. H.) pretend- 
ing religion, worried me with desires that I should admit him & others 
into fellowship with my purchase. I yielded and agreed that the place 
should be such as destitute (especially for conscience sake), & that each 
person so admitted, should pay 30s. country pay, towards a town stock, 
and m3'self have £30 towards my charges (of) which I have had £28 in 
broken parcels in tive years. Pawtuxet I parted with at a small addition 
to Providence ( for then that monstrous bound or business of "up stream 
without limits" was not thought of. W. Harris and the first twelve of 
Providence were restless for Pawtuxet, & I parted with it upon the same 
terms, vie, for the supply of the destitute, & I had a loan of them (then 
dear) when these twelve men (out of pretence of conscience and my desire 
of peace) had gotten power out of my hands, yet they still yielded to my 
grand desire of propagating a public interest, etc., etc. 



PROVIDENCE— ITS BEGINNING 165 

We have tried to determine and describe as nearly as the written 
records will allow, the territory granted to Roger Williams in March, 
1638, and its later subdivision into two purchases. Providence and Paw- 
tuxet, in the autumn of the same year, including the sale of twelve-thir- 
teenths of the territory to twelve of his associate founders. In the two 
neighborhoods, at Moshassuck and Pawtuxet, there may have been twenty 
families with at least one hundred settlers, possibly a few more. Between 
March and October, 1638, Mr. Williams wrote a letter to Gov. John Win- 
throp of Boston, which Mr Stokes calls "the fullest jiicture of the early 
days of the settlement of any writing of the period." This letter reveals 
the status and internal conditions of the inchoate settlements at Mosh- 
assuck and Pawtuxet, and the working of Mr. Williams' mind as to the 
best method of solving the new problems of organization and develop- 
ment. In view of the many grandiloquent oratorical eulogiums poured 
out passionately on Roger Williams as the original founder of a free 
state, etc., the tenor of this letter to Gov. Winthrop will be found mildly 
disappointing. He addresses Mr. Winthrop as Deputy Governor, an 
office which he held from May, 1637, to May, 1640. He requested "a 
word of private advice with the soonest convenience, if it may be, by this 
messenger." The substance of this important letter is as follows : 

The condition of myself and those few families here planting with 
me, you know full well. We have no Patent, nor doth the face of Magis- 
tracy suit with our present condition. Hitherto, the masters of families 
have ordinarily met once a fortnight and consulted about our common 
peace, watch and planting; and mutual consent have finished all matters 
with speed and peace. 

Now of late some young men, single persons (of whom we had 
much need) being admitted to freedom of inhabitation, and ]3romising to 
be subject to the orders made by the consent of the householders, are dis- 
contented with their estate, and seek the freedom of vote also, and equal- 
ity, &c. 

Besides, our dangers (in the midst of these dens of lions) now es- 
pecially call upon us to be compact in a civil way and power. 

I have therefore had thoughts of propounding to my neighbors a 
double subscription, concerning which I shall humbly crave your help. 

The first concerning ourselves, the masters of families; thus: 

P. We u'liosc names are hereunder written. late inhabitants of th^ 
Massachusetts, (upon occasion of some differences of conscience,) being 
permitted to depart from the limits of that Patent, under the which we 
came over into these parts, and being cast by the Proindencc of the God 
of Heaven, remote from others of our countrymen amongst the barbar- 
ians injhis tozvn of New Providence, do with free and joint consent 
promise each unto other, that, for our common peace and welfare (until 
we hear further of the King's royal pleasure concerning ourselves), we 
will from time to time subject ourseh'es to such orders and agreements, as 



i66 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

shall be made b\ the present householders, and such as shall be hereafter 
admitted by their consent into the same privilege and covenant in our 
ordinary meeting. 

In witness whereof we hereunto subscribe, &c. 

Concerning those few young men, and any who shall hereafter (by 
your honorable connivance) desire to plant with us, this: 

IV c ivhose names arc hereunder urittcn, being desirous to inhabit in 
this Town of Neiu Providence, do promise to subject ourselves in active 
or passive obedience to such orders and agreements as shall be made from 
time to time by the greater number of the present householders of this 
Tozvn, and such whom they shall admit into the same fellowship and priv- 
ilege. In witness whereof, &c. 

Hitherto, we choose one, (named the officer,) to call the meeting at 
the appointed time. Now it is desired by some of us that the house- 
holders by course perform that work, as also gather votes and see the 
watch go on, &c. 

I have not yet mentioned these things to my neighbors, but shall as 
I see cause upon your loving Counsel. 

As also since the place I have purchased, secondly, at my own charge 
and engagements, the inhabitants paying by consent thirty shillings apiece 
as they come, until m> charge be out for their particular lots ; and thirdly, 
that I never made any other covenant with any other person, but that if 
I got a place he should plant tliere with me. My query is this : 

Whether I may not lawfully desire this of my neighbors, that as I 
freely subject myself to common consent, and shall not bring in any per- 
son into the town without their consent ; so also that against my consent 
no person be violently brought in and received. 

I desire not to sleep in security and dream of a nest which no hand 
can reach. I cannot but expect changes and the change of the last enemy 
death, yet dare I not despise a liberty, which the Lord seemeth to offer 
me, if for mine own or other's peace. And therefore have I been thus 
bold to present my thoughts unto you. 

This letter was written later than March 24, 1638, as he speaks of 
"the place I have purchased," and with equal probability later than Octo- 
ber, 1638, when the Proprietary was formed for he tells of "the inhabit- 
ants paying thirty shillings apiece as they come." The letter has values 
in what it says and fails to say as to the organization and management 
of the new town, as conceived by Mr. Williams. We note: 

1. That the new town had "a few families," and "some young men, 
single persons." 

2. That New Providence had no Royal Patent. 

3. "Nor doth the face of Magistracy suit with our present condi- 
tion. " — that is, that the masters of families, including Mr. Williams, did 
not think it wise to establish any form of civil government. 



PROVIDENCE— ITS BEGINNING 167 

4. That matters of "common peace, watch and planting," were settled 
by "the masters of families," "with speed and peace." This statement 
does not harmonize with Mr. Williams' reply to William Harris in 1677. 

6. "Householders," "masters of families," were the governing body 
of the community. This plan vested an exclusive governmental control 
in married men, heads of families, — a close corporation of landed Pro- 
prietors, selected by Mr. Williams to manage the Proprietary Estate and 
to make "orders and agreements," to which all must submit "in active or 
passive obedience." 

7. The creation of two classes of citizens, married and landholders 
and "young men, single persons," landless. The latter class were ten- 
antry, with no voice or vote as to the officers of the community or the 
laws which they were called upon to obey. 

8. The Proprietors, as purchasers of twelve-thirteenths of Mr. Wil- 
liams' Indian grant, were assumed to be the owners of the lands conveyed 
by the "Initial Deed," and not as people of a common stock. 

9. The most singular proposition is found in Mr. Williams' plan that 
"against my consent no person be violently brought in and received." 
Here we find the assumption of autocratic power on the part of Mr. Wil- 
liams, in singular opposition to the doctrine of civil freedom, of which he 
has been proclaimed the founder at Providence. The control of the law- 
making and land-holding class is a pure autocracy and not a pure 
democracy. 

Mr. Williams' letter is quite as remarkable in its omissions as in 
its statements of his views as to a model state. State builders have ideals 
of their future. They have a mental model at least of the fabric they hope 
to create. The ideal and plan are essentials to hold their associates to 
their purpose and to inspire their hopes. The Pilgrims signed their civil 
and religious compact in the cabin of the "Mayflower." The Puritans 
recorded their purpose of statehood in their Patent and again through 
their declaration on the deck of the "Arbella." The Portsmouth settlers, 
before they left Boston incorporated themselves "into a Bodie Politick," 
under just laws framed by the people, administered by officers chosen of 
the people, by all the people. Mr. Williams was familiar with the usual 
and necessary formula for a town and a state. His five years debate with 
the Puritans of Massachusetts Bay, in his declarations as to their social, 
civil and religious sins and crimes, precludes belief as to his positive 
nature and protesting faith. Religion, education, freedom of opinion, 
landed possessions, the town meeting, suffrage, were common privileges 
and more, they were the conserving forces of civil society. Mr. Williams 
must have known all this but failed absolutely in declaring for a single 
principle of civil or religious freedom, and the first years of Providence 



i68 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

are consumed in a greedy scramble for land and in Uie bitter hatreds and 
disappointments gendered in the unholy war. 

It can be truthfully and emphatically stated that from June, 1636, 
for a decade of years, not a sentence can be found in Mr. Williams' writ- 
ings that states any high or noble purpose he had in view in the occupa- 
tion and use of the Moshassuck purchase. Still more, although Mr. Wil- 
liams was the only man of fair education in Providence, during the for- 
mative years of purpose and policy, he enters no protest against the state- 
ment, "nor does the face of Magistracy suit with our present condition." 
Individualism, lawlessness, anarchy may rule among those who have been 
Mr. Williams' admirers and followers in Salem, who have made them- 
selves his "loving neighbors and friends" at Providence. They choose 
to live without legal or official restraints, unembarrassed by civil authority, 
— a weak fotuidation on which to build a State. 

It is claimed that Mr. Williams incorporated the phrase, "only in civil 
things," in his statement of what his new town might do, — that it should 
not touch religion. The phrase is not found in Mr. Williams' letter or 
in any other paper over his signature. It is only found in a paper penned 
by Richard Scott and Associates, in a petition to become shareholders in 
the benefits of the Proprietary, and limiting the Proprietary to civil affairs 
in its personal claims on them. Mr. Williams has no claim to such ex- 
clusion. 

It is abundantly proven that "a few families" at Moshassuck and 
Pawtuxet, in part drawn to a new settlement by Roger Williams, occupied, 
as squatters, some of the lands between the Pawtucket and Pawtuxet 
Rivers; that none but Mr. Williams laid claim to education; that none, 
including Mr. Williams, had had any experience in the practical duties 
of government and few had any preconceived notions of civil govern- 
ment as a controlling force in society ; that this individualistic community 
lived for more than two years in a state of expectancy of lands and homes, 
until in October, 1638, a few of the few were aliowed to share with Mr. 
Williams in the Indian estate given him, under conditions and limitations 
most unusual and singular in the founding of towns and States. Thus 
Providence began to be. 



CHAPTER IX 



PROVIDENCE— EARLY LAND ALLOTMENTS 



CHAPTER IX. 
PROVIDENCE— EARLY LAND ALLOTMENTS. 

Government is not an automatic machine, nor a machine product. 
It is a growth, not a creation. It is the expression of the major sentiment 
of the body wliich creates it and its ideals and organization are the meas- 
ure of its concrete development. The founding of Providence illustrates 
a growth from a purely financial or economic principle, separative and 
individual, througli the stages of a protective social and civil order until 
the adoption of the Great Charter of r''/>3, which established certain fixed 
standards of democratic institutions and policies in town and colony. 

The first settlers of Moshassuck were young men and women. No 
one of them had had any experience in matters of local government, and 
on their arrival in the wilderness, they saw but little need of any. Roger 
Williams was the only one who could claim educational ability, beyond 
that of reading and writing. All were novices and, as squatter sovereigns, 
all were equals, without lands, homes or country. It would be nothing 
sliort of a Bible-day miracle to expect any e.xcept the simplest and crudest 
forms of government in such a community. Ignorance and inexperience 
are always conservative, and often obstructive to good order. The thing 
created can never exceed the thought and purpose of the Creator. 

On October 8, 1638, the territory of Providence was owned by thir- 
teen men, styled "house-holders," "masters of families," proprietors. The 
organ of control was styled a proprietary, a purely business enterprise. 
The original proprietors were Roger Williams, Stukeley Westcott, Wil- 
liam Arnold, Thomas James, Robert Cole, John Greene, John Throck- 
morton, William Harris, William Carpenter, Thomas Olney, Francis 
Weston, Richard Waterman, and Ezekiel HoUiman, thirteen in all. The 
Proprietary, indistinctly outlined in Mr. Williams' letter to Gov. Win- 
throp, seemed to him at that time, to be the best instrument for pioneer 
settlement, his ideal of local government, finance and the distribution of 
lands. This was Mr. Williams' contribution to the early Colonial period, 
and the foundation principle in the history of Providence Plantations. So 
firmly was the Proprietary established that it lived for nearly two cen- 
turies, exercising its fimctions in various ways, civil and economic, as a 
separative, disjunctive, individual, selfish factor, in the body politic. Note 
its operations. 

The deed from Roger Williams created a close corporation of land 
holders in perpetual succession, as no reference was made to the lands 
as a trust estate. On the same dav, the whole estate was divided into two 



172 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

parcels, — the Providence and the Pawtuxet lands, — and the Pawtuxet 
section was converted into thirteen individual estates, in fee simple, each 
owner receiving one-thirteenth for personal ownership. 

In addition to this large estate of the original Indian grant, each of 
the proprietors received, in the Providence section, in fee simple, a home 
lot of five acres, butting westerly on the "Towne Streete" in New Provi- 
dence, a six-acre lot of upland or meadow for cultivation, in another 
part of the town, and one hundred acres of timberland in some other sec- 
tion. — one hundred and eleven acres in all. Each of the original thirteen 
proprietors owned, in fee simple, about five hundred acres of land, at a 
nominal cost of fifty shillings, — $12.50. 

The Proprietors' corporate interests lay in the balance of the common 
or undivided lands, about ten thousand acres. These interests included, 
first, the right of commonage, — the free pasturage of cattle and the right 
to cut and use timber for fencing, fuel and building, and second, a pro- 
portionate share of the proceeds of the sale of common lands to new 
settlers. It is readily seen that Mr. Williams combined with twelve other 
men to form a landed oligarchy, holding a monopoly on all the lands 
between the Pawtucket and Pawtuxet rivers. This corporate body, by 
a major vote, could admit other persons to the Proprietary, with or with- 
out Mr. Williams' consent. Self interest ruled in the counsels and the 
acts of the Proprietors, and Mr. Williams usually found himself in the 
minority in its decisions. The Proprietors not only owned all the lands, 
but they were also the freemen of the community, holding all civil as well 
as economic interest under their control. The oligarchy became an aris- 
tocracy of poor men, — both elements hostile to a democracy. Williams 
was absolutely helpless in the hands of his "loving neighbors and friends." 
Later, in 1677, forty years after the "Initial Deed," he stated that he was 
deceived and cheated by dishonest associates and that he intended to create 
a trust estate at the outset for the benefit of the town, but all the written 
documents of the earlier years, especially the Winthrop letter, disprove 
the claims. In further proof that Providence lands were vested in a pri- 
vate, hereditary trust, it appears that the proceeds of all lands sold after 
October, 1638, were divided among the Proprietors, Mr. Williams re- 
ceiving his share, in common with Arnold. Harris. Carpenter. Brown and 
all others. These dividends accruing from the sale of lands held by the 
monopolists, were not large at first, for land was cheap ; even in 1650, 
"home shares" were sold at one shilling an acre and common land at six 
pence per acre. Benedict Arnold and others paid only two shillings for 
their five acre homesteads on the "Towne Streete." At Portsmouth, the 
Boston emigrants, following their Democratic ideals, had made their who'e 
purchase the common property of all the settlers. Land was sold at two 



PROVIDENCE— EARLY LAND ALLOTMENTS 173 

sliillings per acre, one-lialf to be paid "presently," the other half in three 
months from the day of purchase. The proceeds of all sales were paid 
to the town treasurer, to be expended for public uses, roads, bridges, etc. 
This was an equitable and popular plan ; far superior to the Proprietary 
plan. Bitter land contentions began at once at Providence, not only 
among the Proprietors, but also between the land holders and those who 
were landless, but who had been admitted as worthy inhabitants, to whom 
Mr. Williams referred in his letter as those "discontented with their 
estate, and seek the freedom of vote also and equality, etc." Concerning 
tliese land troubles, I shall write later. The first lay-out of Proprietary 
lands at Providence was made some time subsequent to October, 1638. 
Moshassuck peninsula was wisely chosen for the location of the "home 
lots" or "homesteads." A highway, called "the Towne Streete," was laid 
out on the east bank of the Moshassuck river, from "Mile End Cove," 
on the south to Dexter's Lane, now Olney street, on the north, — in length 
about a mile and one-half. A strip of land about a half a mile in width, 
fronting westerly on this street (now North and South Main) and 
stretching over Moshassuck Hill ( now Prospect ) to a middle highway, 
was divided into fifty-two five-acre lots with narrow alleys between the 
lots and two streets running east and west connecting the "Towne 
Stkeete" and the East highway {now Hope street). These two streets 
now bear the names of Power and Meeting. "Fones Alley," which sep- 
arated the lots of Richard Waterman and Francis Weston, still exists 
as a memorial of the early layout, while several butt-ends of old alleys or 
lanes still exist, on the east side of the oldest street of Providence. The 
"home lots" varied from 107 to 125 feet in width on the "Towne Streete" 
and extended to the present Hope street. The lanes, about twelve feet 
wide, served as a passageway for cattle, teams and truckage to the rear 
ends of the lots. Each Proprietor was entitled to one five-acre "home- 
stead." The thirteen original Proprietors chose their lots on what is now 
North Main street, Mr. Williams selecting a lot in the neighborhood of 
a large spring which overflowed into tlie Moshassuck river. Ten of the 
Proprietors built houses on their lots, — probably of timber cut on the 
land they had chosen. 

We find at the outset of the Proprietary what might readily have been 
anticipated, the first severance of relations among the circles of neighbors 
that had come from Massachusetts to Providence to make homes and set 
up house-keeping and rearing families. The first division was based on a 
very vital princi]jle in civil society, — an economical one, — land owning and 
non-land owning. The property severance, among equals, in ordinary 
conditions of society is fatal to the solidarity of the body politic. The 
few "first comers," not wealthy, by the good fortune of their early arrival, 



174 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

had unexpectedly to themselves, come into the possession of more lands 
than they had ever dreamed of possessing, while the "second comers," 
an equally respectable body of people, so far as we know, had no part 
nor lot in the land distribution, and could not buy, unless personally ac- 
ceptable to the majority of the constituted proprietors. The separation 
took place at once and so radical was the severance, that a real union never 
took place between the two classes. Individualism, separativeness. class 
separation on property lines, was the first outcome of the Williams plan. 
Mr. Williams' explanation, made years afterwards may be accepted and 
must be excused, on the ground of forgetfulness or the infirmities of age, 
for no one in our day wishes to accuse him of absolute, intentional false- 
hood. He said, "I have always been blamed for being too mild, & the 
truth is Chad Brown, a wise and Godly soul, now with God, with myself, 
brought the murmuring after-comers (second-comers) & the first monop- 
olizing twelve to a oneness by arbitration, chosen out of ourselves, & 
Pawtuxet was allowed (only for peace's sake) to the first twelve, and 
the twelve gave me a share, which I accepted, after the arbitration." To 
correct Mr. Williams' faulty memory, we only have to refer to the Win- 
throp letter and to the two deeds given by Mr. Williams, October 7, 1638, 
by which he retained one-thirteenth of the Proprietary and also one- 
thirteenth of the Pawtuxet lands. It is also to be remembered that the 
arbitration plan was not adopted until 1640. two years after the "Initial 
Deed," that it did not originate with Mr. Williams, was not accepted by 
all the inhabitants and that it was a failure in accomplishing the ends 
aimed at and was soon abandoned. The apologists of Mr. Williams have 
condoned or glossed over these faults and falsehoods so singularly, that, 
if he had committed wilful murder, it would have been reduced to a case 
of assault or of self-defence. We must not lose sight of the fact that 
The Proprietary and The Pawtuxet Purchase were Mr. Williams' 
solemn and personal transactions, for both of which he received a satis- 
factory money consideration, the receipt of which by him is a matter of 
record and acknowledgment. No cloak is broad or thick enough to con- 
ceal Roger Williams as the chief figure in Act Two, of the founding of 
Providence. 

Another separative act was the investment of all directive agency of 
the community interests in the small body of Proprietors. Judge Staples, 
the last Proprietors' clerk, wrote in 1843 : "During the first years of the 
Colony (Providence), it is not probable that any of the powers of the com- 
munity were exercised by or delegated to, any portion of its members." 
The thirteen original Proprietors, and "such as they received into the 
same fellowship of vote" transacted all the business at Providence. The 
few meetings of the Proprietors, indicated by day and month dates, but 



PROVIDENCE— EARLY LAND ALLOTMENTS 175 

no years, are briefly recorded until July 2~, 1642. Prior to that date 
seven meetings are referred to in the records, when certain land agree- 
ments and orders are entered. Two meetings are recorded in 1643, one 
in 1645, one in 1648, four in 1649, eleven in 1650. Most of the business 
at these meetings related to the sale or exchange of lands. If more fre- 
quent meetings were held, the records of them, if made, have been de- 
stroyed. One fact is certain that the thirteen original Proprietors did not 
hold or exercise any civil functions over the Providence settlements, al- 
though the Proprietors' meetings were often called "Towne Meetings." 
As stated, the fifty-two "home lots," first laid out, lay between "The 
Towne Streete," (North and South Main) on the west and what is now 
Hope street, on the east. The names of owners of these lots were as 
follows, beginning on the south : 

Robert Willi<ims. Joshua Winsor, Alice Daniels, 

ChristophtT Unthawk, John Field, William Harris, O. P.. 

William Hawkins, William Field, John Throckmorton, O. P., 

Robert West, Richard Scott, Roger Williams, O. P., 

Hugh Bewitt, George Rickard, Joshua Verin, 

John Lippitt, John Warner, Widow Reeve, 

Matthew Westqn, Chad Brown, John Smith, 

Edward Hart, Daniel Abbott, lohn Greene, Sen., O. P., 

Thomas Hopkins, William Reynolds, 'Thomas James, O. P., 

Widow Sayer, Staheley Westcott, O. P., William .A.rnold, O. P., 

Widow Tiler, Ezckiel Holzman, O. P., Francis Wickes, 

Nicholas Power, Ricliard Waterman, O. P., Benedict Arnold, 

A Highway (Power St.), Francis Weston, O. P., Jolm Greene, Jun., 

William Wickenden, Thomas Angell, Edward Manton, 

William Man, Thomas Olney, O. P., Thomas Painter, 

William Burrows, Robert Cole, O. P., Matthew Waller, 

Adam Goodwin, William Carpenter, O. P., Gregory Dexter. 

Thomas Harris, John Sweet, 

The names of the thirteen original proprietors and their first allot- 
ments are clearly marked on the Plot of the first division of Home Lots, 
and are designated in the list by the initials O. P. We find Mr. Williams' 
lot near the center of the group of Associates, near the spring which 
bears his name, which he never owned, but was used by all. The com- 
mittee which surveyed and platted these Moshassuck lots and laid out the 
"Towne Streete," on the river's side consisted of Chad Brown, John 
Throckmorton and Gregory Dexter. The dates of the plat, the choice of 
lots, the building and occupation of the houses on the street are unknown. 
All the plans of town occupation and building must have been subsequent 
to October 8, 1638, the date of the Proprietors' Deed. The "six-acre 
lots" were chosen by the Proprietors in different localities. Seven of 
these lots were laid out east of Mile End Cove, bordering on the Paw- 
tucket river. The "What Cheer" lot, on which the Indians stood, in their 
salute to Mr. Williams and his party in 1636, was given to Mr. Williams. 
Other "six-acre lots" were located on the West and Woonasquatucket 
rivers. 



1-6 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

In 1718. the proprietors of Providence made another division of 
home-lots. The proprietary shares and shareliolders had increased in 
eighty years from thirteen to one hundred and one. the maximum number. 
The lands last divided among the proprietors or their assigns lay on the 
southerly and easterly side of Weybosset street, on the west side of North 
Main street and on the south side of Olney street. Each proprietor had 
one lot, determined by the drawing of lots. Subsequently, the water lots, 
on the west side of South Main street, were platted into warehouse and 
wharf lots and in most cases sold to the owners of house lots on the op- 
posite side of the street, the proceeds of all sales being divided among 
the one hundred and one shares. With the increase of the size of the 
Proprietary, the land interests of the corporation increased and with the 
increase of population the land values advanced, insomuch that a share 
in the Corporation became a valuable asset and was transferred by sale 
or heirship. These lands in corporate ownership were disposed of by 
vote to particular persons or by division of a certain number of acres to 
each purchase right, the location of which was left to individual choice, 
to be surveyed by the company surveyor, allowed by the proprietors or 
their committee on lands and recorded by the clerk. Until 1718. the 
clerk was chosen by the town ; after that the proprietors met by themselves 
for the choice of all officers and the transaction of all business. The first 
link in the chain of titles of almost all Providence real estate is found in 
the plats, descriptions and returns of the Proprietary surveyors, reaching 
back to Chad Brown, an early officer of towns, proprietary and church. 

The "Initial Deed" of October 8, 1638, conveyed to twelve Associate 
Proprietors "and such others as the major part of us shall admit unto the 
same fellowship of vote with us," the lands that Mr. Williams had received 
from the Sachems. He imposed no conditions and set forth no guiding 
principles or theories of government. No reference was made in the deed 
to affairs civil or religious. The thirteen proprietors were the "first com- 
ers" to Providence and controlled the situation. The "second comers" 
were subject to their decisions and policy. 

At an early day, how early no one knows, — an interesting and a most 
important paper was presented to the Syndicate. The paper bears no 
date, but it reveals the character of the signers. It reads : 

"We whose names .^RE hereunder, desirous to i.nh.\bitt in ye 

TOWN OF PROVIDENCE, DO PROMISE TO SUBJECT OURSELVES IN ACTIVE OR 
PASSIVE OBEDIENCE, TO ALL SUCH ORDERS OR AGREEMENTS AS SHALL BE 
MADE FOR PUBLIC GOOD OF OR BODY, IN AN ORDERLY WAY, BY THE MAJOR 
CONSENT OF THE INHABITANTS, MAYSTERS OF FAMILIES, INCORPORATED 
TOGETHER INTO A TOWN FELLOWSHIP, AND SUCH OTHERS WHOME THEY 
SHALL ADMIT UNTO THEM ONLY IN CIVIL THINGS." 



PROVIDENCE— EARLY LAND ALLOTMENTS 177 

The signers were : 

Richard Scott, Thomas Angell, 

William Reynolds, Thomas Harris, 

John Field, Francis Wickes, 

Chad Browne, Benedict Arnold, 

John Warner, Joshua Winsor, 

George Richard, William Wickenden. 
Edward Cope, 

This petition and pledge sheds a flood of light on early Providence 
history. Its date does not appear, bnt it may be safely assumed to be 
between the years 1639 and 1644, and was addressed by "second-comers" 
to the corporate body of "present inhabitants." — the Proprietors. These 
persons are "masters of families," — that is, married men, having child- 
ren. This corporation is all there is that can be called, in a very general 
way, a town and constitutes a "town fellowship," as they term it. The 
signers signify their desire to settle in Providence, actively or passively, 
obedient to all order or agreements, "made for public good of or body," 
in an orderly fashion. One limitation is injected that gives point and 
value to the paper — to wit "only in civil things." These petitioners 
declare that they will not submit to any authority of the Proprietary ex- 
cept in matters of civil concern, reserving as their natural and unqual- 
ified right their opinions and acts in all other matters. This declaration 
of rights was made to the thirteen Proprietors, of whom Roger Williams 
was one. This paper follows in part the form which Mr. Williams sub- 
mitted to Governor Winthrop. but diiifers from it in the phrase "only in 
civil things." This is the first time, though in a negative form, that the 
principle of religious liberty is formally suggested at Providence. The 
document is in Scott's handwriting. This declaration is not the official 
act of the Proprietors, but is a limitation of proprietary power, in the 
petition of thirteen persons to be admitted to membership in the Pro- 
prietary, all but one of whom, Edward Cope, took up "house lots" on the 
plat of the original thirteen proprietors. It has been assumed that this 
document was a repetition of some prior declaration, but there is no evi- 
dence of the existence of any other paper. Scott, Brown, Angell, Wick- 
enden, and the others were the first admissions of record to the Proprie- 
tary after its formation and in the "Initial Deed," by Mr. Williams for 
admission, of October 8, 1638. no terms of membership are stated except 
a major vote of the Corporation. We are compelled by all the rules of 
historic evidence to confer on Richard Scott and his associates the honor 
of the first assertion of the independency of the individual in all matters 
not of a civil nature. 

R 1—12 



ijS HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

It is a matter of deep regret that the Proprietors" Records were de- 
stroyed by fire, during the life of the last clerk, Judge WilHam R. Staples. 
The only clear evidence of their contents is to be found in the "Annals of 
Providence," by Judge Staples, published in 1843, and "The Proprietors 
of Providence and Their Controversies With the Freeholders." by Henry 
C. Dorr. Both had a knowledge of these records, and their writings with 
the contemporary town records are our only sure guides as to their con- 
tents. It is possible and quite probable that the town and Proprietors' 
records, until 1718, a period of eighty years, are e.xtant in "The Early 
Records of the To-ivn of Providence," inasmuch as the same person acted 
as town and Proprietors' clerk, until 1718; the haziness of the records 
indicates a haziness of mental vision as to the affairs temporal as well as 
spiritual of the Providence settlers. The terms "town," "the body," "in- 
habitants." "masters of families." "town fellowship," "proprietors," "pro- 
prietary," "plantation," "loving friends," "neighbors," are interchangeable 
terms in the records. From such a medley of suggested ideas we must 
frame our own conception of what really existed at Providence. The 
easiest and most natural conclusion is that the Proprietary, created Octo- 
ber 8, 1638, was often called the town, that its members were called 
townsmen and its meetings town meetings. The corporate body of Pro- 
prietors was the only organized body, in the exercise of any civil functions 
at Providence until 1649, when the town of Providence was organized as 
a civil body, elected officers and assumed civil functions. Prior to that 
date it is of record that the Proprietary did exercise a measure of author- 
ity usually entrusted to towns, such as the probating estates, the preser- 
vation of order, and the protection of property rights. In Providence 
as in all Proprietary towns, there were a body of men with families who 
had a general or a particular interest in the civil affairs of the community, 
outside of the Proprietors. The latter class was a small one, but its 
interests were safeguarded by the semi-official town proprietary. In many 
towns, proprietary', civil and religious business was transacted in the 
same meeting, presided over by the moderators and recorded by the 
clerk in the same book. This was the case in Providence for two or 
three generations. The legislative function was inherent in the proprie- 
tary, and was exercised as an auxiliary within safe limits, but the judicial, 
executive and police functions were weak and distressingly ineffective at 
Providence. 

Trouble began with the creation of the Proprietary, when the "free 
holders" party arose in opposition to the land holders. This minority 
party was a thorn in the side of the land men, and singularly, Mr. Wil- 
liams took sides with the disaffected against the organization which he 
had created and of which he was a stockholder. Judge Staples very char- 



PROVIDENCE— EARLY LAND ALLOTMENTS 179 

itably states that the Proprietary was "wanting in that energy necessary 
to preserve the peace and ensure the prosperity of a growing community." 
The fact really was that the corporation formed October 8, 1638, was not 
formed to "preserve peace" and "ensure prosperity." It was a land-hold- 
ing, land-jobbing, land-selling scheme, with no moral, social, civil, educa- 
tional or religious ends in view. They had the "corner" on all the lands 
at Providence and Pawtuxet and held control of its gradually decreasing 
possessions for two centuries, thereby enriching themselves, their heirs 
and assigns, and contributing but little of their great estate to the town 
of which they are the accredited founders. At the opening of the year 
1640, the situation at Providence may be stated thus : 

(a) All the lands included in the sachems" gift to Mr. Williams were 
owned and controlled by a few Proprietors of whom Mr. Williams was 
one. 

(b) The Proprietary, incorporated October 8, 1638, sometimes called 
the town, was a private institution, assuming the exercise of such civil 
matters as seemed necessary for its own protection and advantage. It 
had no coercive authority and no constable to enforce it. 

(c) The quasi-town of Providence was made up of the Proprietors, 
who by majority vote decided inhabitancy, proprietorship and the right 
to vote in the town proprietor meetings. 

(d) The Proprietary made no declaration of rights and made no 
claim to a Democracv, as it was not a bodv politic and exercised itself 
mainly in the disposal of lands. 

(e) Owing to the exclusive control of lands by the Proprietary, few 
immigrants came to Providence, except as forced by the government of 
Massachusetts Bay Colony to leave that Colony "for conscience sake." 

Mr. Henry C. Dorr thus sums up conditions at Providence : 

It was subject from its earliest days to violent discontents and dis- 
turbances. The purchasers from Mr. Williams, the original twelve and 
their successors, insisted upon the enjoyment of the "fellowship of vote," 
in the town meeting. The landless younger portion of the society still 
claimed that they should not be excluded from the body politic. * * * 
There appeared at an early day the germs of two parties, which grew 
stronger as the town increased, and kept it in perpetual turmoil. Some 
were disappointed in what they found here, and some were captious and 
discontented. Some had come from Massachusetts to escape its intol- 
erance and the arbitrary rule of its magistrates and elders. I5cyond this, 
which was but negative, they had but few positive opinions in common. 
About twelve families sympathized with Mr. Williams in his religious 
opinions, but the majority kept aloof from all associations of the kind. 

The principal event of 1640 at Providence fully confirms all that 
has been stated as to the uncivil turmoils incident to the Proprietary man- 



t8o history of RHODE ISLAND 

agcment and the undemocratic conditions ensuing. This event was to 
establish an outward veneer, called g-overnment by arbitration, over the 
autocratic and aristocratic proprietary, to settle the "irtany differences 
amoii'ist us." "to bring them to unity and peace." On the 5th of July, 
1640, less than two years after the Proprietors had taken over all the 
lands, a committee consisting of Robert Cole, Chad Brown, William 
Harris and John Warner, reported an agreement as to "the fairest and 
equallest way to produce our peace." It is noteworthy that three of the 
four, "chosen by the consent of our loving friends and neighbors" were 
second-comers, William Harris only representing the first group. After 
fixing the boundary line cf the Pawtuxet Purchase, the committee sub- 
mitted the decision of land and personal differences and ofTences to five 
Disposers as a Court to hear and decide cases. This report was endorsed 
by thirty-nine persons, all proprietors except Edward Cope. The safety 
valve of "liberty of conscience" w-as attached to this Proprietary protector 
of corporate interests. As Mr. Cole, the head of the committee, had suf- 
fered punishment in the Bay Colony for inordinate and continued drunk- 
enness, it could easily be seen why the "liberty of conscience" clause was 
inserted in the Agreement. Judge Staples remarks, "The new system, by 
its weakness and lack of energy, gave rise to difficulties which to some of 
the inhabitants seemed inherent and insurmountable. The great liberty 
which all enjoyed was abused by some to licentiousness. From the denial 
of the right of government to inR'rfere in matters of conscience, some 
claimed the right to do with impunity whatever they said conscience dic- 
tated. Others were accused of denying all power in magistrates." Massa- 
chusetts law-breakers fled to Providence as a "city of refuge" from 
restraint and judgment. 

The absence of law and police made Providence a paradise for fugi- 
tives from justice, on grounds of "liberty of conscience," — a grievously 
misleading term in Providence history. In 1641, matters at Providence 
had reached the breaking point, and, on the 17th of November, thirteen of 
the chief of the Proprietors, signers of the Arbitration Agreement, wrote 
to the Government of Massachusetts, praying them "of gentle courtesy 
and for the preservation of humanity and mankind," to lend them "a 
neighbor-like helping hand" to enforce the law in a civil case. Massa- 
chusetts refused to interfere, as Providence was outside its jurisdiction. 
In 1642, Robert Cole, William Arnold, William Carpenter and Benedict 
Arnold submitted themselves and their lands to the protection and gov- 
ernment of the Bay Colony, remaining under that control until 1658, 
thereby constituting a part of Providence Plantations as an integral part 
of Massachusetts as to taxation and protection. 

Besides the Proprietors, who held the lands and exercised the priv- 



PROVIDENCE— EARLY LAND ALLOTMENTS i8i 

ilege of voting, other persons were received as "townsmen," with or with- 
out land ownership. Some townsmen were "quarter-right purchasers," 
receiving a free grant of twenty-live acres of land apiece, with the right 
of commoning. Such persons promised "to yield active or passive obed- 
ience" to the authorities and not " claim any right to the purchase of the 
said Plantations, nor any privilege of vote in town affairs" until made free 
men. Among the "quarter right" men, the names of Pardon Tillinghast, 
Thomas Clemence, Maturin Ballou, John Sayles, Epenetus Olney. John 
Steere and Lawrence Wilckenden appear, with twenty-one others, in 
1646. 

In lieu of regular deeds of land from the Proprietors the records 
appear thus : "27 July, 1642. This day it was agreed that Thomas Ollnea 
(Olney) shall haue the parcel! of land containing 6 Acors of land neer 
the place Called baylcas (Bailey's) Coaue (Cove)." etc., or thus: "Layd 
out unto Andrew Harris upon his purchase rights, three acres of land in 
lue of half a share." Such memoranda constitute the bulk of the records 
until after the incorporation of the town, in 1649. Regular deeds of 
lands properly signed, sealed and recorded do not appear on the Provi- 
dence town books prior to 1650. 

The meetings of the Proprietors, usually called town meetings, had 
no interest for the small handholders and the lessee class of townspeople. 
William Harris and Thomas Olney, clerk, were leaders of the landed 
class, while* Mr. Williams was the head of the "down-and-out" party, 
against the body of his own creation, the Proprietary. Mr. Williams had 
neither constructive, executive or diplomatic ability, while Harris and 
Olney had all these qualities. Then again, Mr. Williams had withdrawn, 
after four months, says Backus, from the society called Baptists and had 
thereby lost his influence as a religious teacher and guide. Thomas Olney 
and William Harris were in good and regular standing in the religious 
body, and Harris had a full share of worldliness mingled with Godliness 
that enabled him to exercise a controlling influence over the hopeful but 
increasing ungodly class of new comers. As late as 1669, Mr. Williams 
appeals to the land aristocracy in behalf of those who do not and others 
who will not come to town meeting, but tiie fact remains that the men 
of property, the Proprietors, were able and organized and retained their 
control of town and proprietory affairs during their lives and left their 
heritage of wealth and power to their successors. Even then their voting 
power placed them in the minority. 

In Mr. Williams' perplexed condition of mind and estate over the 
divisions and distractions at Providence it occurred to him that an in- 
corporation under a Royal Patent might satisfy the people, and accord- 
ingly, in the autumn of 1643, he set sail from New York for London to 



i82 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

intercede with Harry Vane and others for official relief. On this errand, 
Mr. Williams was successful in a measure, securing a Patent for a colony 
to be organized on Xarragansett Bay. The Patent conferred territorial 
rights and governmental power in the most general terms, but its title 
fully evidences Mr. Williams' absolute want of diplomacy. Had he 
named it Rhode Island, Aquidneck or Xarrangansett Colony, all would 
have been well. Instead, he styles it "The Colony of Providence Planta- 
tions in Xarragansett Bay,"' when as yet Providence had only a nominal 
existence in a land corporation. He named three towns in the Colonial 
grant, Xewport, Portsmouth and Providence, only two of which had a 
corporate being. The Rhode Island Colony on Aquidneck had no civil 
relations with the people at the head of the Bay and no sympathy with 
their disorganized conditions. Mr. Williams' act was generously ap- 
plauded by his own coterie, but lost him favor with the more considerate 
and conservative at Moshassuck and Aquidneck. So strong was the 
Island sentiment against the Williams Patent that three years passed 
before Portsmouth and Newport would consent to unite in the establish- 
ment of a colonial government under it, and the terms of the Civil Com- 
pact, drawn by the Island Colony, were accepted by the leaders at Prov- 
idence. Even then, the Providence aristocracy delayed two years before 
taking a charter of incorporation as a town, which was granted at a 
session of the General Assembly, held at Warwick, March 14, 1649. 
From this date until 1718, the duties of Proprietors' Clerk and Town 
Clerk were performed by the same person and the records of the Propri- 
etary and Town are often undistinguishable by the text or context. In 
recognition of the advent of a town charter and organization it was 
"ordered that or constable shall hauve a staffe made him whereby he shall 
be knowne to haue the authority of the Town-Constable." 

Till 1649, Providence had lived without law and attempted to govern 
without government. As Mr. Williams had declared, "the face of magis- 
tracy" was not acceptable to people who held that "civil was nothing 
but a voluntary agreement and that judicial authority was mere arbitra- 
tion." Unlicensed individualism was the source of the unnumbered 
troubles of the Proprietary and the dual conditions of civil and financial 
affairs that followed. Mr. Williams himself was bold enough to declare 
at a later period his belief in law and order, while, to the end of his days 
he continued to indulge in a millennium of "loving friends and neighbors," 
obedient to the Golden Rule. 

The Proprietors continued to hold sway in town and Proprietary 
matters. They decided who were acceptable land-holders, and determined 
who should be voters. They restrained the cutting and sale of timber 
trees in order to discourage ship-building and commerce. The first tax 



PROVIDENCE— EARLY LAND ALLOTMENTS 183 

bill of Providence appears in the year 1650, the gross amount being 
£58.5, — Benedict Arnold, the largest property holder, being assessed for 
£5. Estates were ordered sold for non-payment of taxes and non-occu- 
pation. Deeds were unusual and were not made mandatory until the 
Great Charter of 1663. The Proprietors had assessed no taxes and had 
made no corporate movements for public improvements, such as survey- 
ing and laying out highways, building bridges, clearing lands, etc. Wap- 
waysit Bridge over the Moshassuck at the junction of Randall and Stev- 
ens streets, the first public enterprise in the town, was built by contribu- 
tions of labor and materials, about 1650. In 1667, Roger Williams was 
ordered "to Receaue Tole" at Wapwaysit, "towards suporting of the 
above said bridge." 

From the date of the charter of the town of Providence in 1649, the 
election of town officers, the establishment of a court of trials and the 
organization of "magistracy" in the community, town and Proprietary 
records are merged in one and it is difficult to disentangle the meshes 
of dual records, under the hand of clerks who were servants of both cor- 
porate bodies until 1718. During the life of Mr. Williams, two men by 
their executive ability and personal intlucnce ruled the Proprietary as 
well as the town, — William Harris and Thomas OIney, and at the death 
of both, the power was vested in the popular leader and town-proprietary 
clerk, Thomas Olney, Jr. 

William Harris was one of the greatest of the founders of Provi- 
dence, in many points superior to Roger Williams, but a very different 
type of man. He was born in 1610, was of the ripe age of twenty-one 
when he reached Boston, on the ship "Lyon" with Mr. Williams in 1631, 
went at once to Salem, where he married, and with a wife and one child, 
"poor and destitute," joined his exiled friend in the departure from Salem 
and the Bay Colony, in 1636. Williams came out on a mission among the 
Narragansetts, Harris came to get land, make a home, raise a family and 
get more land. Realism ruled his action, while Mr. Williams dreamed 
dreams. Harris had a legal mind and knew legal forms, methods and 
principles, superior to any man in Providence. Had he been called upon 
to draw the Sachems' Deed, it would have been in legal form, with a clear 
outline of the territory transferred. To this day, no man has ever known 
precisely its scope, not even Mr. Williams himself. Harris had no liking 
for Mr. Williams' ideas as to missions, philanthropy or "distressed con- 
sciences." He had chosen a pioneer life, with the vigor of a bold and self- 
determining passion to conquer the wilderness and to play a man's part in 
the process. He had a clear, keen mind for business. He was conscien- 
tious in conflict, which he never shunned when right and justice were at 
stake. Arnold calls Harris "an active, determined man, resolute in mind, 



i84 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

and vigorous in body, delighting in conflict, bold in his views on the 
poHtical dogmas of his time, fearless in his mode of expressing them, 
striking always firmly and often rashly for what he believed to be the 
right, and denouncing with the energy of a concentrated intellect all 
men or measures that did not conform to his ideas of truth and honor." 

William Harris was the man who had won the freehold of the Paw- 
tuxet Purchase for the thirteen associates, against the purpose of Mr. 
Williams to establish a mission compound at Xew Providence. He was 
the man who had forced Mr. Williams to establish a Proprietary over the 
balance of the Providence lands, with the rights of inheritance in the trust 
vested in the legal heirs of the proprietors. Mr. Williams suggested that 
it might be wise to assume to himself the right of veto to any member 
of the proprietary. The idea was not adopted and the major vote was the 
determining factor. The formation of the Proprietary and the sale of 
the Pawtuxet lands completely frustrated Mr. Williams' scheme as to 
an Indian mission, for there were no funds available for charitable uses 
from the sale or rental of lands. Nearly half of the estate had been con- 
verted to freehold uses and the sales of the Proprietary lands only provided 
payment for the cost of administration. No accounting of funds of the 
Providence Proprietary has ever been made public, and no benefit or 
residue ever accrued in any form to the Town of Providence. The man 
of business won over the idealist and William Harris fixed the policy of 
the settlement — not Roger Williams. 

Mr. Williams believed that the Memorandum of 1639, attributed to 
Miantonomi, did not add a foot of land west of the Pocasset river to the 
original grant. Mr. Harris construed the Sachems' deed as conveying 
the fee in all the lands bordering on the Pawtuxet westward, to the limit 
of the Narragansett territory, about twenty miles, to the Connecticut line. 
He also believed that the postscript memorandum was a confirmation of 
the original Sachems" deed. Harris knew as did Miantonomi that the 
Pawtuxet was a long river, rising in the Xipmuc lands in the northwest 
hill country. As the Pawtuxet valley lay to the west of the Pocasset 
\'alley it was safely assumed that the bounds of the Sachems' deed might 
be construed as extending as far to the west as the Warwick Purchase, 
which ran twenty miles to the Connecticut line. Harris reasoned that it 
would be an easy matter to extinguish the titles of the local Indian villages 
that might be found on the territory in question, which he proposed to do. 

The long battle is now on between the two giants of Providence, 
continuing with varying intensity and the alternation of victory and defeat, 
for forty years, the whole Providence life of the contestants. Mr. Wil- 
liams so hated his opponent in the struggle that he would not speak his 
name or write it except by the initials, W. H., or W. Har. It is charity 



PROVIDENCE— EARLY LAND ALLOTMENTS 185 

to both to say that each had a reasonable basis of opposition and that 
each, in his failure to grasp the other's purpose and motive, acted up to 
the full standard of his conscientious convictions. It is the duty of the 
historian to do justice to both of the actors in the long struggle, which 
outlived the men who were the chief antagonists, Roger Williams and 
William Harris. It must easily be seen that Mr. Williams was a thor- 
oughly disappointed man. For two years a vision of civilized and con- 
verted Indians had cheered and lured him on, amidst wilderness, darkness 
and discouragements. He saw a multitude of Indians sitting at his feet 
as disciples of a great master. The mirage of hope dissolves in thin air. 
He found himself no longer in full control of the lands on which his 
mission plant was to stand, himself helpless and his great property ac- 
quisition in the control of men, many of whom were not in sympathy with 
his scheme, for he has not confided to them his cherished purpose. Worst 
of all, the "poor, destitute young man," Harris, whom he allowed to be 
his companion from Salem, rules the situation by his strong personality 
and his indomitable will. The pacifist is in the hands of the fighter. We 
have already seen that Mr. Williams and Mr. Harris were agreed in the 
conclusion that the Sachems' Deed of 1638 conveyed too small a territory 
for a good township. Both want an enlargement. Had they acted in 
harmony, the common need would have been satisfied and the bounds 
enlarged as they were at a later date. Wide ditiferences in plan and 
motive led to separate lines of action, to estrangement, to mutual hate and 
the consequent derangement of civil society. 




CHAPTER X 



THE PROVIDENCE PROPRIETARY 



CHAPTER X. 
THE PROVIDENCE PROPRIETARY. 

Prior to March, 1638, we have no exact knowledge of what transpired 
at Providence, since 1636, nor do any events prior to that date have any 
significance, poHtical or reHgious. Fugitive famihes, squatters on In- 
dian lands, uncertain as to their future, and restless in their landless and 
homeless condition, were not in a mood to assert opinions or vindicate 
rights. Their daily bread was more than a prayer, — it was a supreme 
etifort, and all forms of liberty wait on the products of the soil and the 
sea. in the sustenance of life itself. 

The memorandum deed of the Narragansett chiefs made Roger 
Williams the sole owner of all the lands between the Pawtucket and 
Pawtuxet Rivers. He is the lord of a large manor. His manner of 
handling this large and suddenly acquired estate will show what manner 
of man Mr. Williams is. His ideals will now appear. On some date, 
now uncertain, Mr. Williams has written to Gov. Winthrop, asking his 
advice as to the admission of inhabitants to his Moshassuck possessions, 
and submitted two forms of agreement, one for adults, "masters of fam- 
ilies" and another for young men. Mr. Williams wrote : 

I have therefore had thoughts of propounding to my neighbours a 
double subscription, concerning which I shall humbly crave your helpe. 
The first concerning our selves, the masters of families, thus: We, whose 
names are hereunder written, late inhabitants of the Massachusetts (upon 
some occasion of difference of conscience), being permitted to depart 
from the limits of that Pattent, under the which we came over into these 
parts, & being cast by the Providence of the God of Heaven, remote from 
others of our countriemen amongst the barbarous in this towne of New 
Providence, doe with free & joynt consent promise each unto the other, 
that, for our common peace & welfare (untill we heare further of the 
King's royall pleasure concerning ourselves) we will from time to time 
subject our selves in active or passive obedience to such orders and agree- 
ments, as shall be made by the greater number of the present household- 
ers, & such shall be hereafter admitted by their consent into the same 
privilege & covenant in our ordinairie meeting. In witnes whereof we 
hereunto subscribe, etc. 

Although a speedy reply was called for, no evidence exists of any 
advice from Boston. From various evidence it appears that Mr. Wil- 
liams mortgaged his house and land at Salem to meet his expenses at 
Moshassuck. After the purchase of lands he expected to sell at his 
option to reimburse his expenditures and for further personal gain. Mr. 



I90 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

Williams also declared it to be his desire "that against my consent no 
person be violently brought in and receaved. I desire not to sleepe in 
securitie & dreame of a nest which no hand can reach." 

On the 8th of October, 1638, Mr. Williams entered into an agree- 
ment with Ezekiel Holyman, Francis Weston, Richard Waterman, Thomas 
Olney, Robert Cole, William Carpenter, William Harris, John Throck- 
morton. John Greene, Thomas James, William Arnold and Stukeley 
Westcott to divide equally among them, "all the meadow ground at Paw- 
tuxet, bounding upon the fresh rivers upon both sides" on condition that 
"every man to pay an equal proportion to raise the sum of twenty pounds 
for the same." On the third day of the tenth month, 1638, Mr. \\'il!iams 
acknowledged the receipt of £18. lis., 3d. in full. 

Presumably (though not certain), on the same day. December 8, 
1638, Air. Williams sells to twelve associates, as owners and co-proprietors, 
the lands purchased of Canonicus and Miantonomi, March 24, 1638, by 
the following paper called "The Initial Dted." 

Alemorandum, that I, R. W., having formerly purchased of Canoni- 
cus and Miantonomi, this our situation or plantation of New Providence, 
vis., the two fresh rivers Wonas. and Moosh. and the grounds and mead- 
ows thereupon, in consideration of £30 received from the inhabitants of 
said place, do freely and fully, pass, grant and make over etjual right and 
power of enjoying and disposing the same grounds and lands unto my 
loving friends and neighbours, S. W., W. A., T. J., R. C, T. G., J. T., 
W. H., W. C, I. O., F. W., R. W. and E. H., and such others as the 
major part of us shall admit into the same vote with us. As also, I do 
freely make and pass over equal right and power enjoying and disposing 
the said land and ground reaching from the aforesaid rivers into the 
great river Pawtuxct, with the grass and meadow thereupon, which was 
so lately given and granted by the two aforesaid sachems to me. 

Witness my hand. R. W. 

At Providence, on the 22 of December, 1666, Mr. Williams reaffirms 
"The Initial Deed' with another "Memorandum," with this e.xplanatory 
word as to the former: "This paper and writing * * * differs not 
a tittle, only so is dated as near as we could giiess about the time, and the 
names of the men written in the straight of time and haste are here ex- 
plained by me." In "The Initial Deed," two Indian deeds are referred 
to; the first of lands "formerly purchased of Canonicus and Miantonomi ;" 
the second of lands on the Pawtuxet River, "so lately given and granted." 
Within seven months of the date of Mr. Williams' purchase of the Prov- 
idence Plantations, he has united with himself twelve men in the forma- 
tion of a Proprietary, — a voluntary association of persons, holding and 
conveying lands and in the call of the Plantations deciding by a majority 



THE PROVIDENCE PROPRIETARY 191 

vote who should become associate proprietors and inhabitants and voters 
at New Providence. 

Clearly a Proprietary is not a Democracy. A Democracy rests on 
two foundation principles, — the right and freedom of entrance, of fran- 
chise, of exit, and the right of property with guaranteed titles. These 
fundamental or inalienable rights are expressed in the Declaration of 
Independence in the terms, "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." 
Any curtailment of these rights is contrary to civil freedom; any infringe- 
ment is tyranny. 

Mr. Williams' primary purpose was to hold all his purchase in his 
own hands and to hold the admission of inhabitants subject to his per- 
sonal control. The reason for the enlargement of the Proprietary, by 
adding twelve others, appears in a letter of Mr. Williams written in 1G77 : 

As to my selling to them (the twelve) Pawtuxet and Providence: It 
is not true that I was such a fool to sell either of them, especially as 
W. H. saith 'like an Halter in a Market who gives most,' the Truth in 
the Holy Presence of the Lord is this, — Wm. H., Pretending Religion, 
wearied me with desires, that I should admit him and others into fellow- 
ship of my purchase. I yielded and agreed that the place should be for 
such as were destitute (especially for conscience sake) and that each 
person so admitted should pay 30/ — country pay, towards a town stock 
and myself here £30 towards my charges, which I have had £28 in 
broken parcels in 5 years. Pawtuxet I parted with at a small addition to 
Providence ( for then that monstrous bound or business of upstream 
without hmits, was not thought of) Mr. Harris and the first 12 of Prov- 
idence were restless for Pawtuxet and I parted with it upon the same 
terms, viz., for the supply of the destitute, and I had a cow of them (then 
dear) when these 12 men (out of Pretence of Conscience & my desire 
of Peace) had gotten the power out of my hands, yet they still yielded 
to my grand desire of propagating a public interest, and confessed them- 
selves but as feroffees. 

In point of time and in the relations of men we are now at the start- 
ing point of the great controversies which divided the first settlers at 
Providence, which created multitudes of social, civil and financial troubles 
and sorely threatened the very existence of the Plantations. Primarily, 
the long century trouble began with differences between William Arnold 
and William Harris on the one hand and Roger Williams on the other 
relative to the first purchase of Indian lands made by Mr. Williams, 
March 24, 1638. Mr. Williams claimed that these lands belonged to him 
personally "as much as the coat on his back," and that he had an absolute 
right to dispose of them as he pleased. Mr. Harris contended that he and 
the others who came with Mr. Williams to Providence were jointly in- 
terested in the settlement, — that it was not an Indian mission compound. 



192 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

wherein Mr. Williams was to have absolute control, but a joint stock 
corporation in which all should have interests. While the Arnolds sym- 
pathized with Mr. Harris in his attitude as to land ownership, they had 
other differences with Mr. Williams. These related to the civil govern- 
ment of the Plantations. They had no confidence in Mr. Williams' ideas 
of founding a separate Colony and held that the allegiance of the people 
at Providence was due to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. 

Three things must be done to bring to pass their clearly established 
ideas. The first was to join with William Harris in inducing Mr. Wil- 
liams to join in the formation of a Proprietary of the lands included in 
the Williams Purchase, of March, 1638. This was accomplished by the 
"Initial Memorandum," of no date. Another act was to secure an amend- 
ment to the Indian memorandum of March 24, 1638. This was done 
under date of May 9, 1639, when Miantonomi, the sagamore, confirmed 
the memorandum of his chief, and declared the purchase extended "up 
the stream of Pavvtuckett and Pawtu.xett without limmets wee might 
have for our use of cattell." As witnesses we have Roger Williams and 
Benedict Arnold. Now follows a bitter debate as to the meaning of the 
newly acquired territorial area, on which already the Arnolds, Harris and 
Carpenter have settled. As to Mr. Williams' feelings on the two prop- 
ositions alluded to we have burning evidence in his own words written 
nearly forty years after the transactions. 

William Harris and others of the first comers claimed that they were, 
by the original agreement, joint owners of the whole estate, and the fact 
that Mr. Williams admitted them to the corporate fellowship as "loveing 
friends" lends color to their claim. It is of interest to note that six of 
the twelve men, constituting the land syndicate of the Plantations, were 
dwelling in Salem at the time of the purchase. — Francis Weston, Richard 
Waterman, Thomas Olney, Stukeley Westcott, Ezekiel Holliman and 
Robert Cole, who were dismissed from the Bay by order of the General 
Court, March, 1638. An interesting situation existed relative to the 
Plantations Estate. The corporation of thirteen men was in reality a 
trust with no beneficiary named. The succession was not personal to an 
owner and his heirs but a corporate succession to a perpetual body, con- 
tinued in being by the vote of the entire body which had successors but 
no heirs. It is quite reasonable to believe that Mr. Williams intended 
that the town not then created should be the recipient of the benefits of 
the trust he had been compelled, as he says, to form. His generous 
nature admits of such an interpretation. 

We meet squarely at this point the problem. What did Mr. Williams 
found? It clearly appears that at some early date he called the place of 
his settlement New Providence or Providence, just as he named William 



THE PROVIDENCE PROPRIETARY 193 

Arnold's residence Pawtuxet, neither place being a town, only a residence. 
Only a few persons followed Mr. Williams to Providence, — not enough 
to warrant a settlement or the purchase of land. He had been advised by 
Gov. Winthrop to betake himself to the Narragansett country. Two 
reasons prompted this advice. One was to preserve friendly correspond- 
ence with Mr. Williams. Another was to use Mr. Williams as a medium 
for preserving the neutrality of the Narragansett Indians, or for secur- 
ing their active alliance and assistance in the Pequot War, which had then 
virtually begun,— 1636-1638. Mr. Williams fulfilled both relations and 
services most faithfully and his many letters to his "loving friend," Gov. 
Winthrop, and his personal services and sacrifices in behalf of the Bay 
Colony, in that trying period of Colonial existence, testify splendidly in 
favor of Mr. Williams' spirit of charity and forgiveness for those who 
sent him into the wilderness and his influence with Canonicus and his 
tribe in securing their aid for the complete overthrow of the warrior 
tribe of the Thames Valley. 

Mr. Williams, on the other hand, had an eye single to his own pro- 
tection as a settler at Providence in preserving the friendship of Gov. 
Winthrop, the leader of the Bay Colony, and of Canonicus and his tribe, 
on whose lands he had located. Either could and might dislodge him at 
any moment and for the slightest pretext. Still more the Bay Colony did 
not want Mr. Williams as a near neighbor. Their plan to ship him back 
to England with his family, was frustrated by his cunning and audacious 
braving the perils of an old-time New England winter. Plymouth wanted 
a white settlement on its western borders at Seekonk, but, advised by the 
Bay, Mr. Williams was directed to move on from his first chosen town 
site, just without the Bay Colony, and within the dominions of Massa- 
soit, with whom he had spent the late winter months of 1636. Once 
without the bounds of Plymouth and the Bay Colonies, Mr. Williams, 
always an opportunist, understanding the hindrances the Bay Colony 
might interpose to his establishment of a rival Colony on Narragansett 
Bay, stays at Providence under the guidance of events. A few disaffected 
residents of Salem join him at Providence, — some of Anabaptist lean- 
ings. The great liberal revolution at Boston, led by Anne Hutchinson 
is at its climax in 1637, and the banishment of a colony of 300 Boston 
people, with whom, on the common ground of exile, he has a bond of 
sympathy, stirs Mr. Williams to action. Contact is made with Clarke 
and Coddington by the gravity of a Colonial purpose and the purchase of 
Aquidneck for the Boston exiles and the gift of the Providence Planta- 
tions to himself, opens the door to a new settlement at Providnce in 1638. 
What shall be the outcome in government? — a monarchy, an aristocracy 
or a democracy, 01 neither. The would-be reformer of the Bav is the 

R 1-13 



194 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

leader, — he alone owns all the land, — his followers, few or many, are 
about him. He is for the time, master of the situation. In possession of 
a large estate — the Plantations — he must have occupants. If he opens a 
wide door of admission, the territory will be overrun by the Bay Colony, 
which looks with jealous eyes on Mr. Williams' movements. On inquiry, 
he finds that his "neighbors and loving friends," among whom are Wil- 
liam Harris, William Carpenter and William Arnold, are opposed to 
"the face of magistracy" as he says. He also finds that some of his asso- 
ciates in the little group of settlers have a strong leaning towards the 
Bay Colony. His first decision is to retain the lands in his own name and 
stand as the sole judge of the character of inhabitants admitted. No one 
shall become a land holder and voter, without Mr. Williams' consent. 
We have seen how both plans were frustrated by Iiis "neighbours and 
loving friends," and a land trust, or Proprietary, was formed in October, 
1638. In order to form it, Mr. Williams is obliged to relinquish to the 
Associates his hold on the rich lands of Pawtuxet, with a territorial limit 
of the Plantations on the south and west of Sassafras Point, Mashapaug 
and Hipser Rock. 

The business situation is one unknown in the annals of civil govern- 
ment. Mr. Williams held a large life estate, — the Plantations. — which 
legally terminated with his own life. This life estate he transfers by "the 
Initial Deed" to twelve associates as joint-owners with himself. This 
"Deed" is not a legal document as it is not dated, is not legally signed or 
witnessed and has no legal grantees and no beneficiarj-. The trust is a 
corporate one and not personal and is perpetual. Singular powers are 
conferred in the sentence, "and such others as the major part shall admit 
into the same vote with us." Thereby, this body of thirteen men, at first 
owning and controlling all the aflfairs temporal at Providence, decided on 
the admission of inhabitants, their qualifications, on the possession of the 
franchise, the civil policy, the magistracy, civil and criminal courts, taxes, 
etc. It was known by several titles as "the town," "the town fellow- 
ship," "Proprietors," "Masters of Families." This body of men and their 
later associates constituted the town of Providence until its incorporation 
by the General Assembly in 1649. The records known as the "town 
records" are an account of the doings of this body of Proprietors, which 
expired with the death of Judge William Staples, the last Proprietor and 
clerk, in 1848. 

In the Bay Colony the franchise was exercised solely by male church 
members. In Plymouth Colony any male twenty-one years of age could 
vote. At Providence only members of the Proprietary, — married men, 
"maisters of families, incorporated together into a Town Fellowship," 
could vote. The outcome of this original and unique plan limited the 



THE PROVIDENCE PROPRIETARY 195 

land ownership, the franchise, the business cuntrol and the usufruct of 
the trust to the thirteen men and their associates of the Proprietary. 
While destitute persons and those "distresfcjd in conscience" were wel- 
comed from all quarters of the Plantatioi.i, by Mr. Williams, once on 
the ground, they had no voice in the affaits of the town and no property 
they could call their own. As a matter of fact, while the records show 
an allotment of lands to various persons as early as 1640, no valid deed 
was executed until 1650. Among the rules made by the inhabitants in- 
corporate was one requiring every person to be propounded one month 
before he could be made an inhabitant or townsman. On urgent neces- 
sity, a special meeting might be called to admit a person who had been 
propounded four days. Another rule prohibited every person from sell- 
ing "his field or his lot. granted in our liberties, to any person, but an 
inhabitant, without consent of the town." 

It is very evident that the organization formed by ]Mr. Williams was 
not a democratic town nor was the government a democracy, nor did it 
give or establish civil liberty, and in justice to the founder, it should be 
stated that he never made such claims. If we keep clearly in mind the 
chief motive that ruled Mr. Williams in his doings at Providence, it will 
appear that civil liberty was the very thing he labored to avoid. He had 
been exiled from the Piay. There was nothing in Church or State at 
Plymouth, Salem or Boston that suited his theological or civic ideas and 
temper. He had a sympathetic regard for "the destitute" and "dis- 
tressed in consciences," — men who like himself and John Smith, the miller, 
and Joshua \^erin and Ezekiel Holliman and others of that class who 
sought an asylum, when there was little law, no magistrates and where 
individualism was supreme. Beyond that spontaneous generosity that 
took no thought of the morrow, lay the determined will of Mr. Williams 
that the Bay should not make a foray on his new Plantations, and thus 
destroy his last hope of a home on New England territory. The barrier 
he established was efficacious, in that a close corporation could and did 
hold property and its control and local government in its own sure pos- 
session. Its approval and denial were both absolute and. based as the 
decisions of the town trust were on property ownership and control, only 
a civil revolution could possibly overthrow the syndicate. Still further, 
the shield of final and full protection of the town trust existed in the 
contract of the Initial Deed, whereby the trust was its own beneficiary 
and always remained so, to such an extent, that the tow-n of Providence 
never received a dollar of money o\ one acre of land from the Proprie- 
tary, founded by Roger Williams, October 8, 1638. Judge William B. 
Staples, the last clerk of the Proprietary, in the Annals of Providence, 
under date of 1843, wrote, "The Colonists (Providence) had undoubtedly 



196 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

experienced the difficulties attendant on this form of government. Tliey 
found it not only onerous to individuals, but wanting in that energy neces- 
sary to preserve the peace and ensure the prosperity of a growing com- 
munity." The first modification of the corporate trust of estates, which 
Air. Dorr declared to be "both permanent and corporeal," soon occurred 
as a result of general dissatisfaction within and without the town cor- 
poration. Before presenting the scheme of arbitration, we must discuss 
an important paper bearing directly on the civil and religious aspects of 
affairs at Providence. This paper is the first entry in \'olume I, page i, 
E.\RLY Records of the Town of Providence, published by the authority 
of the city of Providence, 1892. The document bears no date. 

We whose names are hereunder desirous to in habitt in the towne 
of prouidence do promise to subject (ourselves) inactive or passive 
obedience to all such orders or agreements as shall be made for publick 
good of or body in an orderly way by the maior consent of the (present) 
Inhabitants maisters of families In(corporated) together into a towne 
fellowship a[nd] others whome they shall admitt unto them 

only in civill things. 

Richard Scott, 
WiLLi.\M (X) Reynolds, 
John (X) Field, 
Chad Browne, 
John Warner, 
George Ricka[rds], 
Edwarde Cope, 
Thomas (X) Angell, 
Thomas Harris, 
Fr.\ncis (X) Wecher, 
Benedict Arnold, 

JOSUA WiNSOR, 

William Wickenden. 

This document was written by Richard Scott, though it has been 
credited to Mr. Williams. Many proofs show it to be in Mr. Scott's 
handwriting, as are the first three names. All above the name of Chad 
Browne was written by the same hand, with the same ink by the same 
quill, as will be easily decided by reference to the photograph. 

Governor Arnold calls this paper "The Providence Compact," and 
is interpreted by him "as securing the rights of conscience inviolate." 
Mr. William B. Weeden styles it "Rhode Island's Magna Charta." Mr. 
Howard M. Chapin calls it "an agreement as to suffrage." Staples styles 
it "an agreement," and from it adduces the proposition of the establish- 
ment of a Christian community based ujion the great principles of perfect 
religious liberty." Carpenter calls it a "compact" without remark. Dr. 
Backus, the earliest interpreter of this paper, calls it a "covenant," which 



THE PROVIDENCE PROPRIETARY 197 

was made with all the inhabitants. Mr. Straus, one of the latest biog- 
raphers (1894) writes: "The instrument doubtless was drawn up by Mr. 
Williams, as it bears the characteristic impress of his life purpose: to 
found a community which should forever be a refuge and shelter for 
the persecuted and oppressed." * * * "It will be observed that the 
parties bind themselves 'only in civil things,' thus securing the rights of 
conscience by excluding them from the domain and the jurisdiction of 
government.'" Bancroft, in loftier rhetoric and with a wider American 
vision, says: "A Commonwealth was built up where the will of the 
greater number of householders, or masters of families, and such others 
as they should admit into their town fellowship, should govern the State ; 
yet 'only in civil things ;' God alone was respected as the Ruler of Con- 
science." 

.So much emphasis has been laid upon this first record of Providence 
in its bearing on the soul-liberty attitude of Roger Williams and the foun- 
dation principles of Providence Plantations, we are compelled to give it 
a thoroughly exhaustive study. As interpreted by most of Mr. Williams' 
biographers, it means all they claim for it. Viewed in its historic rela- 
tions it has a far different meaning. It is an undated document, a fact 
that has allowed a wide latitude of values. It does not admit an earlier 
date than October 8, 1638.— for that was the day on which "The niaistcrs 
of families" was "Incorporated into a towne fclloK'ship." Chad Browne, 
one of the signers arrived in Boston from England, August, 1638, but 
the date of his coming to F'rovidence is unrecorded. The paper is ad- 
dressed to Mr. Williams and his twelve Associates, who, by a major 
vote, determined the admission of inhabitants. This position is made 
clear and certain by reference to the Initial Deed of October 8, 1638. The 
Instrument is a petition of thirteen men to become inhabitants of Prov- 
idence, acquiring thereby for each a share in the lands of the corporation, 
a vote in the affairs of the town and a voice in the decisions as to the 
admission of future inhabitants. 

This paper affirms loyalty in active or passive obedience "to all such 
orders or agreements as shall be made for the public good" by the in- 
corporated Proprietary, termed "a towne fellowship." Here we recognize 
a new and unusual source of legislative, executive and magisterial author- 
ity in civil affairs. It is neither monarchial nor democratic. It is the 
rather aristocratic and feudal. One is reminded of the manorial estates 
of England, with feudal laws, tenures, privileges and obligations. It is 
a singular but an interesting fact that no one of the Corporation at Prov- 
idence had been made a freeman and voter in the Bay Colony and with 
the ''xception of Mr. Williams, no one owned land property, prior to 



lyS HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

coming to Providence, while four of those whom Mr. Williams chose as 
members of "the towne fellowship" were ordered to leave the Bay "before 
the next Court," by the Court convened March 12, 1638,— Francis Weston, 
Richard Waterman, Thomas Olney, Stukeley Westcotf, a fifth, Rob- 
ert Coles, was at Cambridge, June 5, 1638, and left the Colony with obli- 
gations unpaid while Ezekiel Holliman, the sixth of the twelve, appear- 
ing before the Court. March 12, 1638, "was referred by the Court to the 
ministers for conviction," "because hee did not frequent the public as- 
scmblyes, & for seducing many." It is quite likely that Mr. Weston staid 
at Salem into June, 1638, as the Bay Court sentenced his wife to sit in the 
bilboes, two hours at Cambridge and two hours at Salem, on June 5, 1638 

The most distinguishing feature of this instrument on Petition is the 
four words, "only in civill things," which are so emphatic in the 
thought of the writer as to occupy a distinct line by themselves. These four 
words limit the "orders on agreements," * * * "for public good of 
or body," to civil affairs and thereby to determine the field of service and 
authority of the corporation. They also mark the essential difference 
between this paper and the subscription drawn by Mr. Williams and sub- 
mitted to the judgment of his "loving friend," Gov. Winthrop, that had 
no limitation of authority and no distinct reference or inference to any 
otlier than civil rights. 

It appears that neither in the Williams Subscription nor "The In- 
itial Deed" is there any reference to individual civil or religious rights. 
Mr. Williams, as the leader in the settlement of Providence, has in no 
way indicated his desire to found a civil state on the basis of soul liberty. 
These matters have not occupied his attention up to this time. Had they 
done so he certainly would have "divulged his opinions" thereon. Had 
the phrase "only in civill things" appeared in "the Initial Deed" and "the 
Towne Fellowship" agreement of Oct., 1638. there would have been no 
need of inserting it in the Scott Petition. The absence of that declara- 
tion occasioned its later introduction and establishes its authorship in 
Richard Scott. His great concern has been to safeguard life and prop- 
erty against the incursions of the Bay Colony and his Proprietary has 
accomplished these ends. Richard Scott, the author of this Subscription 
is a Baptist as is also his wife Katherine, a sister of Anne Hutchinson of 
Massachusetts. They and others of the Baptist faith are soul-liberty 
people, who have come to New England for spiritual freedom. Dr. John 
Clarke, leader of the Colony of Rhode Island, had already planted a town 
on Aquidneck, on the foundations of civil and soul rights. Chad Browne, 
a Baptist, had arrived at Providence, joining Arnold Field, Harris, Weckes 
and Scott in a new declaration of the rights of freemen. These are the 
persons who insert the civil freedom plank in the platform of "the Towne 



THE PROVIDENCE PROPRIETARY 199 

Fellowship," as a guarantee of the protection of both civil and soul liberty 
at Providence. The author of the declaration is Richard Scott, then a 
Baptist, later a Quaker, and the acceptance of these persons into the 
civil corporation commits Mr. Williams and his twelve associates to a 
new principle at Providence — toleration. 

"Only in Civil Things." 

This pregnant sentiment contains the embryo and embodiment of 
civil and religious liberty in a community. Commonwealth or Nation. The 
limit of all civil acts or authority is to "civil things." "Civil things" in 
their last analysis include civil rights, duties and obligations, as well as 
civil liberty in its broad meaning; while civil liberty is natural liberty, 
under such restraints as are essential for the public good. Hon. Thomas 
Durfee, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island, declared the 
statement to be a constitutional declaration of the right of soul liberty in 
its widest meaning, "covering not only faith and worship, but also free- 
dom of thought and speech in every legitimate form." 

It is well within our province as an historian to relate that the pro- 
prietary, established by Mr. Williams in 1638, assumed two functions ; one 
was the admission of members to the "Town Fellowship" and the dis- 
posal of lands ; the second was the exercise of rights, duties and preroga- 
tives of a town government. There had been no action of the settlers in 
establishing any form of local control. Mr. Williams says many times 
that the Providence men were opposed to laws and magistracy, many 
of them declaring against the formation of a church, in that civil or 
ecclesiastical orders and laws were not consistent with individual freedom. 
Mr. Williams and his followers hereby represented the extreme radicalism 
and reaction from the superior claims of authority as practised by the 
Stuarts. It was the doctrine of individualism in church and State, in so 
far as it made each man the absolute judge and governor of his own 
opinions and acts, with no special regard to the rights of others and, 
withal, a general denial of civil authority. This mental attitude readily 
accounts for Mr. Williams' defiant attitude of church and State in the bay. 
He and his disciples at Salem and Providence regarded the absolute free- 
dom of the man as superior to the combined opinions and interests of 
men, as manifest in town, church or colony. This absolute independency 
of the individual of all civil, social and ecclesiastical restraints in matters 
of opinion and action was styled "freedom of conscience," soul liberty 
and like terms. What Mr. Williams calls "a distressed conscience" had 
no reference whatever to religious liberty or to civil freedom. Any 
barriers to the free exercise of individual thought, expression or action 
was an interference with conscience liberty. 

Upon the pretense of religion or conscience, Mr. Williams claimed 
peculiar privileges and powers above others in civil concernments, and 



200 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

challenged all manner of authority not in harmony with his opinions. 
"Opinion" was the synonym of "conscience" — the individual man was 
superior to the State. 

The next step for Mr. Williams, after the assumption of absolutism 
in individualism was a logical one. It was to make himself the ruling 
conscience of the community of which he was a part, and this he did in 
so far as associated action would allow. Holding this view of Mr. Wil- 
liams' position, we can easily understand his whole course at Providence 
from 1636 till his death. His acts polarize at personal individualism. 
"Religious liberty," "civil liberty," "conscience liberty," "distressed in 
conscience," "soul liberty," may all be translated into the Williams ver- 
nacular, "my own absolute, unlimited individualism." On no other prin- 
ciple can Mr. Williams' public acts from 1630 to 1683 he made to har- 
monize. 

"The Town Fellowship," as established by Mr. Williams, made no 
mention of things civil or ecclesiastical, but in his mind it included both. 
Hence all matters of local interest and action came within the operations 
of the proprietary. Sometimes it calls itself "the town," sometimes "our 
body," sometimes "masters of families," sometimes the "town govern- 
ment." But whatever its name, it was until 1648 the one thing — The 
Land Trust — The Williams Proprietary. The records are meagre and 
most perplexing. The first dated meeting was held July 27, 1642. Only 
four dated town meetings were held before 1648. Hon. William R. 
Staples, the last clerk of the proprietary and later Chief Justice of the 
State, writes : "It is quite evident that there existed in this little commu- 
nity a great distrust and jealousy of delegated power." * * * "The new 
system, by its weakness and lack of energy, gave rise to difficulties, which 
to some of the inhabitants seemed inherent and unsurmountable. The 
great liberty which some enjoyed was abused by some to licentiousness. 
From the denial of the right of government to interfere in matters of 
conscience, some claimed the right to do with impunity whatsoever the 
said conscience dictated. Others were at the time accused of denying all 
power in magistrates." 

It needs no argument to show that in any age the doctrine of an 
unrestrained opinion, backed by a resolute will, is hostile to the tenets of 
civil freedom and subversive of law and magistracy. The working of the 
French revolution is a forceful illustration of an unlicensed and an un- 
fettered "liberty of conscience." While the principle of absolute right 
inheres in the individual, the State derives its authority by the transfer- 
ence of individual rights to the civic body called the State. The State can 
exercise itself along lines determined by constitutional guarantees, con- 
ferred by a major vote of the individuals, admitted to the franchise. 

The Joshua Verin case — the only one of record — is complete proof of 



THE PROVIDENCE PROPRIETARY ' 201 

the weakness and incompetency of the WilHams individuaUstic policy. 
Most writers and apologists of Mr. Williams cite the Verin case in proof 
of the establishment and operations of Simon-pure religious liberty at 
Providence. Let us study the case. It seems that Joshua Verin was living 
in Salem at the time of Mr. Williams' departure and joined him in the 
summer of 1636, being one of the five persons who accompanied him to 
Providence. By the Hopkins location of town lots, Joshua Verin's lot 
adjoined that of Mr. Williams on the north, and he was consequently his 
nearest neighbor. 

Philip Verin, Joshua's father, was a leading citizen of Salem, a deacon 
of the Salem church and an officer of the town in association with its 
leading citizen. Governor John Endicott. Joshua's brother, Hilliard 
Verin, held chief offices in the old town and was collector of the port. 
The family were large land holders — Joshua holding lands in his own 
right in 1635 and later. 

The land records of Providence show that Joshua Verin owned one 
hundred acres of land in this place, and this, with other evidence, estab- 
lishes the fact that he was a member of the Town Fellowship, a voter, and 
consequently a married man with children. As Verin was a companion 
of Mr. Williams and his next-door neighbor at Providence, it is probable 
that Mr. Williams approved his membership in the town society. 

The event, which has given young Verin distinction, occurred proba- 
bly in 1639, as the "Town Fellowship" dates from October, 1638. There 
are three reliable records as follows : The first is found on page 4, volume 
i., Early Records of tin- Toivn of Providence, and is in the handwriting of 
Roger Williams. It reads as follows: 

The 21 die of ye 3 month (no year). 
It was agreede that Joshua Verin upon ye breach of a covenant for 
restraining of ye liberty of conscience shall be mith held from the liberty 
of voting till he shall declare ye contrary. 

The next record under date of the loth of 4th month (no year) con- 
firms "severall portions of grasse and medow" to "or neighbour Throck- 
morton neighbour Grene neighbour Harris Joshua Verin neighbour Ar- 
nold and neighbour Williams." 

On May 22 Mr. Williams wrote the following story of Verin to Gov- 
ernor Winthrop, of Boston : 

Sir, we have bene long afflicted by a young man. boysterous & 
desperate, Philip Verin's sonn of Salem, who, as he hath refused to heare 
the word with us (wch we molested him not for) this twelve month, so 
because he could not draw his wife, a gracious & modest woman, to the 
same ungodlines with him, he hath troden her under foote tyranically & 
brutishly ; wch she and we long bearing, though with his furious blows 
she went in danger of life, at the last the major vote of us discard him 



202 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

from our civil freedom, or disfranchize, &c. ; he will have justice (as he 
clamours ) at other courts ; I wish he might, for a fowle & slanderous & 
brutish carriage, wch God hath delivered him up unto ; he will hale his 
wife with ropes to Salem, where she must needes be troubled & trouble- 
some as differences yet stand. She is willing to stay & live with him or 
elsewhere, where she may not offend &c. I shall humbly request tht this 
item be accepted & he no way countenanced until (if need be) I further 
trouble you. 

It will be noted that Mr. Williams in this detailed statement of com- 
plaints against young Verin as related to Governor Winthrop makes no 
mention of his violation of his principle of soul liberty on Verin's part. 
He makes out a case of assault and battery, by a "boysterous and des- 
perate" young man upon "a gracious & modest woman" — his wife. For 
that reason and that alone, according to Mr. Williams, "the major vote 
of us discard him from our civill freedom." Here then is a criminal act. 
The criminal and his victim are his next-door neighbors, living not fifty 
yards from his own house. Mr. Williams knew the Verin family at 
Salem. He knew Joshua and his wife. They were probably members 
of Mr. Williams' church at Salem— undoubtedly persons "disturbed in 
conscience" and destitute. The latter fact appears in a letter of Mr. Wil- 
liams. It seems that Joshua Verin owed Governor Winthrop a debt of 
eight pounds sterling, which he had been unable to collect before Verin left 
Salem, in 1636. Finding himself unable to collect the debt, he sent the 
claim to Mr. Williams, offering him one-half of the bill as his commission 
for collection. !\Ir. Williams wrote to Governor Winthrop, "I shall be 
urgent with him." It is quite possible, in fact very probable, that a young 
man, just married, proud spirited, and not altogether as spiritual minded 
as Mr. Williams, who found it a hard job to build a cabin and support a 
family in a wilderness, might be tempted to be "boisterous" and possibly 
"desperate" in the presence of an "urgent" dimner for the payment of 
an eight-pound debt, especially if he had reason to believe that half of the 
debt would remain in the hands of the collector. 

The third record of the Verin case is found in Winthrop"s history of 
New England, and is Mr. Winthrop's story of the affair: 

At Providence, also, the devil was not idle. For whereas, at their 
first coming thither, Mr. Williams and the rest did make an order, that 
no man should be molested for his conscience, now men's wives and chil- 
dren and servants claimed liberty hereby to go to all religious meetings, 
though never so often, or though private, upon the week days ; and be- 
cause one Verin refused to let his wife go to Mr. Williams so oft as she 
was called for, they required to have him censured. But there stood up 
one Arnold (William), a witty man of their own company, and with- 
stood it. telling them that when he consented to that order, he never in- 
tended it should extend to the breach of any ordinance of God such as the 
subjection of wives to their husbands, &c., and gave divers solid reasons 



THE PRO\'IDENCE PROPRIETARY 203 

against it. Then one Greene replied that if they should restrain their 
wives, &c., all the women of the country would cry out of them, &c. 
Arnold answered him thus : Did you pretend to leave the Massachusetts 
because you would not offend God to please men and would you now 
break an ordinance of God to please women ? Some were of opinion that 
if V'erin would not suffer his wife to have her liberty, the church should 
dispose her to some other man, who would use her better. Arnold told 
them that it was not the woman's desire to go so oft from home, but only 
Mr. Williams's and others. In conclusion, when they would have censured 
Verin, Arnold told them that it was against their own order, for Verin did 
that he did out of conscience; and their order was that no man should be 
censured for his conscience. 

According to Governor Winslow, the Verin party won in this cele- 
brated case and Verin escaped censure. According to Mr. Williams' 
letter and the town record, Verin was deprived of his vote in the town- 
fellowship "till he shall declare to the contrary." The most remarkable 
view of this case is the official record as it appears in the Providence 
records and Mr. Williams' detailed account as related to Governor Win- 
throp, to which the Governor makes no reference in his summary. The 
verdict is "ye breach of a covenant of the liberty of conscience." Setting 
aside the epithets and character which he bestows on his companion and 
neighbor, let us analyze the situation to discover the offence. It would 
appear that Mr. Williams held meetings in which any one could "heare 
the word with us." Verin did not attend. His wife did. Mr. Verin, for 
unknown reasons, objected to her frequent absence from home and com- 
panionship, which he had a perfect right to do. In those early days wives 
were admonished "to be in subjection to their own husbands." "If they 
will learn anything let them ask their own husbands at home." "To be 
discreet, chaste, keepers at home, obedient to their own husbands." 

Mr. Verin's offence on "the liberty of conscience" then was his desire 
to enjoy a husband's privileges in his own home with his wife and chil- 
dren, and his earnest efforts to secure his rights. The claim of interfer- 
ence with "the covenant of the liberty of conscience" is too frivolous to 
be harbored for a moment. No question had been raised in any remote 
way relating itself to that principle. The truth is that Mr. Williams set 
his resolute will to the task of securing Mrs. Verin's adhesion to his 
views. In this sturdy purpose he ran counter to Mr. Verin's ideas as to 
the home and social duties of his wife. Probably Mr. Williams" "urgent" 
calls for the payment of the Winthrop debt of eight pounds may have 
disturbed and destroyed friendly relations with a spirited young neighbor. 
At all events, the family-neighbor quarrel is a serious affair — so serious 
that it is brought before "The Town Fellowship" for consideration and 
solution. Mr. Williams makes one record of that event and Governor 
Winthrop another. But, assuming that Mr. Williams is correct in his 



204 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

record and letter, we are forced to the conclusion that Mr. \'erin was 
safely within his rights as a member of the "Town Fellowship" and a 
citizen of Providence in objecting to Mr. Williams' solicitations and de- 
mands as to Mrs. Verin's attendance on his meetings. There is no evi- 
dence that any question of conscience was involved, and if there was the 
.Scott amendment to the civil compact precluded all matters, not "civil" 
from consideration by the governing body. It is a clear contradiction and 
a strange traverse of the sentiment and principle "only in civil things" to 
declare illegality and criminality to a "breach of the covenant for re- 
straining liberty of conscience" when conscience questions are absolutely 
excluded from the domain of Town Fellowship consideration. Joshua 
Verin's conscience claimed protection equally with that of Mr. Williams 
or Mrs. Verin. or even both combined. In fact an interference with 
Joshua Verin's conscience liberty by Mr. Williams was in absolute con- 
tradiction to his oft-asserted claim of soul liberty at Providence. If his 
offence was outside the limit of "civil things" it had no right of recogni- 
tion by the civil body. Such recognition would be a violation of the first 
law of a Democratic state. If, as Mr. Williams asserts in his letter to Mr. 
Winthrop, \>rin whipped his wife, it was a case of assault and batter)' and 
should have been treated in a criminal court by a criminal procedure. But 
as there was no civil government at Providence, no court, no civil officer 
and no laws, no action could be brought for the people opposed "the face 
of magistracy." 

It is estimated that there were thirty families on the plantations in 
1639. Several of the latest arrivals from Salem, Massachusetts, had Ana- 
baptist leanings. The time seems to be near for the formation of a 
religious society. The leader and founder is an ordained minister, with 
a few years of experience in Massachusetts as a teacher of religious 
truth. It must be assumed that he has in some way exercised his 
gifts at Providence. Although we have no clear record of the fact, 
there are many reasons for thinking that the men and women of early 
days were quite willing to excuse attendance on Mr. Williams' exposi- 
tory preaching and praying, in their cultivation of the fields, the pur- 
suit of fish and game for food, or the making log houses comfortable 
for family life. The Bay Colony seems to furnish the first religious propa- 
ganda at Providence, converting priest and people to a new sectary, 
hated and rejected by Puritan orthodoxy. We must study the new move- 
ment at Providence through Massachusetts authorities. Winthrop writes : 

At Providence things grew still worse, for a sister of Mrs. Hutchin- 
son, the wife of one Scott (Richard), being infected with Anabaptistry, 
and going last year ( 1638) to live at Providence, Mr. Williams was taken 
(or rather emboldened) by her to make open profession thereof, and 
accordingly was rebaptized by one Holyman (Ezekiel), a poor man, late 
of Salem. Then Mr. Williams rebaptized him and some ten more. They 
also denied the baptism of infants, and would have no magistrates. 



THE PROVIDENCE PROPRIETARY 205 

To confirm the statement of Governor Winthrop, Rev. Hugh Peters, 
minister of the church at Salem, wrote that "their great censure" was past 
upon Roger Williams and his wife, John Throgmorton and his wife, 
Stukeley Westcott and his wife, Mary Holliman and the widow Reves, 
and that all but two of these were rebaptized. Backus adds the names of 
William Wickenden. Chad Brown and Gregory Dexter. Richard Scott, 
who with his wife afterwards became Quakers, writes: 

I walked with him (R. W.) in the Baptists way about 3 or 4 months, 
in which time he brake from the society, and declared at large the grounds 
and reasons for it ; that their baptism could not be right because it was not 
administered by an apostle. After that he set upon a way of seeking (with 
two or three of them that had dissented with him) by way of preaching 
and praving : and there he continued a year or two, till two of the three 
left him. that which took most with him was to get honor amongst men. 

Later in 1639 Governor Winthrop writes again : 

At Providence matters went on after the old manner. Mr. Williams 
and many of his company, a few months since, were in all haste rebap- 
tized and denied communion with all others, and now he was come to 
question his second baptism, not being able to derive the authority of it 
from the apostle, otherwise than by the ministers of England (whom he 
judged to be ill authority), so as he conceived God would raise up some 
apostolick power. Therefore he bent himself that way, expecting (as was 
supposed ) to become an apostle ; and having, a little before, refused com- 
munion with all, save his own wife, now he would preach to and pray with 
all comers. Whereupon some of his followers left him and returned 
back from whence they went. 

In 1641 Governor Winthrop adds of the Providence planters : 

Divers of them professed Anabaptists, and would not wear any arms, 
and denied all magistracy among Christians, and maintained that there 
were no churches since those founded by the apostles and evangelists, nor 
could any be, nor any pastors ordained, nor seals administered but by such ; 
and that the church was to want these all the time she continued in the 
wilderness, as yet she was. 

In 1649 Mr. Williams enters his own opinion of the doctrine, which 
he accepted and held for a few months : 

At Seekonk a great many have lately concurred with Mr. John Clarke 
and our Providence men about the point of a new baptism and the man- 
ner by dipping : and Mr. John Clarke had been there lately * * * and hath 
dipped them. I believe their practise comes nearer the first practise of our 
great Founder, Christ Jesus, then other practises of our religion do, and 
yet I have not satisfaction, neither in the authority by which it is done ; 
nor in the manner : nor in the prophesies concerning the rising of Christ's 
Kingdom after the desolations by Rome. 



2o6 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

In passing from the testimony, it may be stated tliat Mr. Callender 
raises a doubt as to Mr. Williams' membership in the embryo church at 
Providence. He says, writing in 1736, "the most ancient inhabitants now 
alive, some of them above eighty years old, who personally knew Mr. Wil- 
liams, and were well acquainted with many of the original settlers never 
heard that Mr. Williams formed the Baptist church there, but always 
understood that Mr. Browne. Mr. Wickenden or Wiginton. Mr. Dexter, 
Mr. Olney, Mr. Tillinghast, &c., were the first founders of the church." 
Moses Brown, writing in 1836, at the age of ninety-six, says, "Doct. Ed- 
wards on inc|uiry among our old people concluded that Mr. Williams was 
never considered, first, an elder, but that Chad Brown was the first elder 
in the Baptist church." And Neale says that "his church hereupon crum- 
bled to pieces, every one following his own fancy, and the worship of 
God came to be generally neglected." As to any and all of the matters 
relating to the early history of the First Baptist Church of Providence 
the truth must be told that not a vestige of a record can be found for one 
hundred and thirty years and the historian must gather from outside 
sources such stories and traditions as happen to be preserved. However 
that may be as to the church or town records, we have sufficient data to 
establish certain conclusions as to the conditions existing at Providence 
during its inchoate life. The following propositions seem to us to be 
supported by the facts : 

I. Roger Williams, a Puritan non-conformist minister, about thirty 
years of age, an exile from the Bay Colony, finds a place of safety for him- 
self and family at Providence, then Moshassuck, in June, 1636. 

II. He is joined at Providence by several "destitute and distressed" 
persons, but he has no purpose to found a tow^n — rather an asylum. 

III. His teachings and acts in the Plymouth and Bay Colonies, dur- 
ing a period of five years, did not show the qualities of a safe leader, nor 
knowledge of the principles and operations of civil or church government. 

IV. The issues made by Mr. Williams in the Bay Colony had only a 
remote reference to matters of civil and religious liberty. 

V. The accession of a number of settlers at Providence and the 
coming of the Aquidneck colonists led Mr. Williams to secure Providence 
Plantations of Miantonomi, chief sachem of the Xarragansetts, holding 
the lands in his own name, March 24, 1638. 

VI. In October, 1638, on the persistent solicitation of his associates 
he formed a land copartnership, receiving twelve settlers into the Town 
Fellowship or Proprietary. 

VII. Males, married, heads of families, were the only persons eligi- 
ble to membership, to be elected by a major vote of the whole body. After 
a name had been propounded one month. Lands could not be resold with- 
out consent of the land company. 

VIII. No civil organization or town was formed, no principles of 
civil policy were laid down, no laws were made for the common good, no 
magistracy was established, no democratic franchises existed, no town 
officers elected. 



THE PROVIDEXCE PROPRIETARY 207 

IX. In 1639 Richard Scott and twelve others asked to be admitted 
to the Town Fellowship, pledging active or passive obedience "only in 
CIVIL THINGS." So far as the records show these thirteen persons were 
the only ones of the P>llowship subject to that limitation. This petition, 
sometimes erroneously called "The Proi'idcncc Coii![>act," was written by 
Richard Scott and addressed to Roger Williams and his associates of the 
Town Fellowship as the ground of their union. 

X. The chief function of the Town Fellowship was to safeguard 
the admission of inhabitants and to apportion to accepted persons lands 
for home and for cultivation. This land corporation e.\-ercised some of the 
functions of a town government, by general consent. 

XI. The single case of discipline of a member of the "Town Fellow- 
ship," Joshua Verin, for a breach of the covenant for restraining the lib- 
erty of conscience" may be interpreted as a malicious interference with the 
rights of the individual or a lamentable looseness in justice. If we accept 
Governor Winthrop's testimony, it was the invasion of a civil right, with 
the right vindicated. If we accept Mr. Williams' explanation, it was a 
case of assault and battery falsely judged on the ground of a false issue. 
Either horn of the dilemma is a dangerous instrument. 

XII. Mr. Williams' sudden conversion to Anabaptistry shows an 
unsettled mind on theological matters, while his speedy change to "Seeker- 
ism,"— an ancient form of Agnosticism— and according to Mr. Richman 
"the uc plus ultra of religious individualism," is evidence of his continued 
indetermination in religious matters. 

XIII. The religious body organized at Providence, according to 
Governor Wmthrop, opposed magistracy in civil affairs, was non-resistant, 
objected to the use of arms, and maintained there were no churches since 
those founded by the apostles, nor any pastors nor sacraments. This posi- 
tion agrees with civil polity established by Mr. Williams, which regarded 
all magisterial functions as hostile to church and state. 




CHAPTER XI 



PROVIDENCE TOWN AND PROPRIETARY 










fi-^TcK,'. 










CHAPTER XL 

PROVIDENCE TOWN AND PROPRIETARY. 

In 1649, thirteen years after its discovery by the Arnolds, Carpenter 
and Williams, ancient Moshassuck receives a town charter from the Gen- 
eral Assembly, meeting at Warwick, and is authorized to organize a town 
called Providence and to set up a town government. Hitherto all civil 
authority has been vested in a private corporation, the Proprif.tary of 
1638. In its incapacity for "'magistracy" and in its ability to retard the 
growth of the town it was a crowning success. It was equally successful 
in keeping lands, finances and public policies under its control for more 
than a century. The attempt to administer government l)y "Arbitration." 
tried out in 1640, was also a lamentable failure, as all such voluntary 
operations are forever doomed to be. Government, stable and efficient, 
must rest on foundations of granite, not on the "hay, wood and stubble" 
of good wishes. Nine weary, troubled years followed, and Providence 
took up the duties of civil government. The rule of "Maisters of Fam- 
ilies" has been transferred to "the free inhabitants" of Providence, "to 
make and ordaine such civill orders and constitutions, to inflict such pun- 
ishments upon transgressors," as such "free inhabitants" may make, pro- 
vided that "the said Laws, constitutions and punishments for the civil gov- 
ernment of the Plantation" are legally adjusted to English government. 
But "the free inhabitants" of Providence are the owners of land and the 
land property of the town is owned by the Proprietors. Hence the in- 
corporation of Providence simply transfers the town control from social 
to economic or property control. Political equality as well as liberty were 
vested in the hands of land-owners. Landless men had no voice in the 
government of the new town, could not vote or hold office. Even the 
"quarter-rights men" were not freemen in their limited land ownership. 
It was as late as May 15, 1658, that a town order was passed "that all those 
that enjoy land in the jurisdiction of this town are freemen." It cannot 
be too clearly stated or understood that from October, 1638, to May 15, 
1658, a period of twenty years, the civil community at Providence was 
in the absolute governance of "Masters of families" and that it passed to 
all land-holders in 1658. The original right of franchise was vested in 
headship of a family. The next stage was its enlargement to include all 
land holders. 

In addition to the oligarchy of freemen created by the law of land 
ownership was the adoption of the custom of primogeniture, which 
vested the franchise in the oldest son of a free-holder. Here we have the 



212 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

adoption of the old Xorman law of aristocracy as a a feature of oligarchic 
franchise at Providence. In this poHtical bestowment we find a principle 
absolutely at variance with the doctrine of civil and religious liberty. 
While the Proprietary based citizenship on the possession of lands, it had 
it in its power to open wide the doors of civil liberty and religious liberty 
to those struggling for a broader freedom. But, as we have seen, it did 
not fulfill such a benevolent mission. On the other hand, it exercised its 
prerogative of exclusive privilege for the chosen few and for the rejec- 
tion of the poorer class, however worthy the individuals might be. John 
Smith, the miller, the first manufacturer of Providence, who came with 
Roger Williams, never was allowed to vote, and Pardon Tillinghast does 
not appear among the fifty-four privileged proprietors of the town. In 
1655, there were only forty-two colony freemen to exercise the franchise, 
and in 1676, there were not over- 500 people in Providence. It was about 
1660, that the primogeniture feature was adopted in order to restrict 
the number of free land holders and to the original land ownership its 
continuance in the family line, the oldest son coming into the full voting 
right of his father's estate. This right of the eldest son persisted until 
the adoption of the Constitution of Rhode Island in 1842. Mr. Stokes 
states that from the formation of the Proprietary -until 1842, "no legal 
vote was cast in a Providence town meeting by any freeman who was not 
a freeholder in his own right or the eldest son of one." 

While civil liberty was thus handicapped at Providence by the exclu- 
sion of a great body of the inhabitants from the franchise and a larger 
body from land ownership, it was also greatly hindered by the absolute 
neglect of education. A century and a half passed before a public school 
opened its doors to the youth of the town, — a period of ignorance and of 
comparative poverty. x\t the same time religion was in a poor estate and 
languished for want of an educated ministry and the ideals of an edu- 
cated people. 

The town of Providence of 1649 was a legalized proprietary with 
civil functions annexed. The control of public and land afifairs remained 
in the hands of Olney, Harris and their friends, as before the charter. 
The duties of the town clerk and the proprietors' clerk were vested in 
the same individuals for seventy years. Mr. Williams had left Providence 
in 1647 to carry on his trading house venture at Narragansett, and did 
not return until 1653. The Arnolds, Carpenter and Cole were living 
under Massachusetts rule at Pawtuxet and paid taxes to the Bay Colony. 
Thockmorton had gone to New York, where he founded Throgg's Neck. 
Joshua Verin no longer vexed Mr. Williams, as he had left the country. 
Francis Wickes, John Greene. John Warner and ILzekiel Holliman had 
cast in their lots with Sam Gorton, at Warwick. Richard Scott was at 



PROVIDENCE TOWN AND PROPRIETARY 



21 



Land's End, raising a Baptist-Quaker family. Widows Reeves, Tiler, 
Daniels and Sears had no votes in the town. Other names on the pro- 
prietors" roll had no legal existence in Providence. A half dozen men 
carried the civil and religious liberties of the town safely tied up in their 
ancient voluminous pocket-books. Aristocracy asked no favors and 
granted none. Civil and spiritual democracy was an untried, unde- 
termined, unreality at Providence. The specific purpose of its controlling 
forces was not law or liberty — it was land, property, wealth, individual, 
corporeal. The creations of theorists and idealists of a later day have 
invested the hard facts of ancient Providence history with a dress and a 
halo absolutely out of harmony with their real character and the motives 
that inspired it. More's Utopia, Harry Vane's fifth monarchy and Roger 
Williams' ideas of civil and soul freedom died in the brain cells of 
dreamers. 

For a fuller discussion of the proprietary and town relations, refer- 
ence is made to The Finance.s and Administr.\tion of Providence, 
1636-1901, by H. K. Stokes, and to Providence Proprietors and Free- 
holders, by Henry C. Dow. 

Providence has in late years published its Early Records in a series 
of twenty volumes. These are ostensibly the records of proprietary and 
town clerks, but it needs an exceptional critic to discern which is town 
and which proprietary for a period of eighty years. It is most manifest 
that pages one to five of volume i. are from Mr. 'Williams' memoranda, 
and illustrate his usual traits of incompleteness, although we have no evi- 
dence that he was ever chosen proprietary clerk. The names of persons 
who served as clerks for town and proprietary are Thomas Olney, Gregory 
De.xter, John Sayles, Shadrack Manton, John Whipple, Daniel Abbott, 
Thomas Olney (2nd) and Richard Waterman. The town clerks, after 
1718 to 1830, were Richard Waterman, Nicholas Tillinghast, James 
Angell, Theodore Foster, Daniel Cooke, George Tillinghast, Nathan W. 
Jackson and Richard M. Field. With the destruction of the proprietors' 
records by fire, the names of the clerks of that body since 1718 have been 
lost with the exception of William R. Staples, the last officer of that body. 
The town government instituted in 1649 consisted of a town council 
of six men, a town clerk, a treasurer, a constable and sergeant. Three 
members of the council were elective by the freemen and three others 
were the deputies from Providence in the General Assembly, chosen 
by the freemen of the whole colony. Town and colony were repre- 
sented in the units of town government, a singular and unusual combina- 
tion that existed from 1649 to 1664. As Providence, at the latter date, 
did not exceed over two hundred inhabitants, and as the proprietary 
assumed the financial control of the town, there was little of communal 
busmess left for the town council. It is safe to state that the de facto 



214 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

government was in the property holders, although the executive machin- 
ery was vested in the town, but was exercised in small measure by either 
town or proprietary. Individualism, social, civil, economic, held sway. 
Democracy ruled on the clam and oyster beds, over the bay fisheries, the 
wild fowl of the waters and the game of the forests. All else was an 
oligarchy, aristocratic autocracy, with restricted executive force. Harris 
and Olney were lords of the manor and exercised their Teutonic birth- 
right in harmony with their ancestral birthright. .So exacting were the 
rules of the corporation that for many years the use of the town com- 
mon was limited to the members of the proprietary. 

References are often made to courts in the early days, but these in 
most cases were assumed powers of the corporation in matters of land 
disputes and local difl'erences of various sorts. These primitive courts 
conducted by local or colonial magistrates sought to settle, by the easiest 
and most reasonable ways, the questions of law and equity arising in the 
community. The court of arbitrators ended in a farcical attempt to allay 
a "hubbub." and the constable's men had little terrors for the men who 
ranged the Providence forests with their old bell-muzzles. 

Fines and penalties were often adjudged, but seldom executed. Con- 
stables and sergeants were too timid and the guilty parties too resolute 
and too well armed in defence for safe procedure. 

Taxation was twofold, in service and in money. Improvements waited 
on individual initiative or community needs. Wapwagsit bridge was built 
by a bridge-building bee of Providence "neighbours" who needed a public 
crossing of the Moshassuck at that point. Thomas Olney wanted it and it 
was built by citizen labor for free citizen use. Where the public needs 
and private ends harmonized, service was at hand. Where it assumed a 
compulsory character, with small compensation, if any, it was steadfastly 
avoided. "Masters of families" might want roads built to their lands, 
but excluded inhabitants, without lands or votes, had no use for roads, 
except Indian trails, and could not be forced to build them. The real 
democracy at Providence had nothing, did nothing and cared nothing. 
Even after the enlargement of the franchise in 1656, public duties were 
avoided and taxes shunned "to the ruin of government for want of the 
execution of the laws." The courts were impotent to enforce orders 
against delinquents. Public service was voidable at the choice of the 
servant, and was never sought until fees or salaries were made commen- 
surate with the duties imposed. 

Money taxation in Providence was a plant of slow growth. The first 
tax of record was assessed in 1652, payable at the will of the persons 
assessed. Taxes were assessed as occasions required, sometimes by the 
town council, the constable, the overseer of the poor and special assessors. 
The returns of property valuation were required of owners by the law 



PROVIDENCE TOWN AND PROPRIETARY 215 

of 1667, and the rate-makers apportioned the taxes upon the taxpayers' 
returns. Taxable property in Providence until 1690 was confined to lands 
and live stock, while in earlier days taxes were assessed solely on live 
stock. The development of a tax system was slow and the early results 
in collections unsatisfactory in the extreme. During the first years of 
town taxation, the payment was optional with property owners. Many 
freemen "brought in" their taxes voluntarily, while others declined pay- 
ment and evaded the collector. Law had no enforcement. Providence 
was a non-taxpayers' paradise. Even colonial legislation was ignored 
and neglected when the raising and expenditure of money was involved. 
Such a democracy has always been popular with certain classes of political 
economists. 

The joint records of the proprietary and the town of Providence till 
1719 are a study for the understanding of early history. These records 
will never have great value until properly edited. Volume one of the 
town records contains deeds recorded between 1651 and 1681 by Clerks 
Whipple, Manton and Thomas Olney, Jr. Volume two contains land 
titles and the minutes of meetings, including events between 1642 and 
1661. As the freemen and the proprietors were one and the same body, 
legislation as to lands and to things civil and judicial are constantly inter- 
mingled on the pages of succeeding volumes. 

The town meetings were held at such times as the land or other busi- 
ness might demand and at such places as seemed most convenient. The 
Roger Moury tavern was used October, 1657, for which the town paid 
"is: 6p. out of ye Treasurie for this dales fireing & house roome." In 
April, 1674 John W'hipple, tavern-keeper, was paid "one shilen for house- 
rent." The Whipple tavern was central and seems to have been a favorite 
for town meetings. The house of Hugh Bewit, 1664, was also used by 
the town. In 1664 the engagement of Roger Williams "for Clabordes & 
Nailes for the building of a Town howse by the Towne is remitted." The 
moderator was chosen at each meeting, but the town clerk was chosen 
annually. Town meetings were not popular gatherings. Under date of 
October i, 1657, the following record appears: "Ordered yt because of 
ye often & present greate difficultie of getting ten to make a Towne meete- 
ing yt if upon lawfull warning seven onely meet their Meeting shall be 
Icgall." The moderator engaged the clerk and the clerk all the other town 
officers. All the town meetings, transactions as to lands, sales, exchanges, 
bounds, etc., occupy a large place in the records. The meeting is often 
converted into a court, but the diflferences of function do not appear. 
Two publications of marriages were made to the town at town meeting 
and also posted "upon some eminent tree in ye Towne streete, after wch 
publication the marriage shall be lawfull, after a fortnight, if no Excep- 



2i6 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

tions Come in within ye fortnights time. It, In extraordinary cases per- 
sons may in a shorter." 

Among the town orders appear : "To erect a town caige ;" repealing 
a town law which restrained men from selling wines or liquors to the 
Indians by wholesale ; that a cow-pen be built ; a verdict on the death of 
Margaret Goodwin, "We find so neare as we can judge that either the 
terribleness of the crack of thunder on the second of the third moneth of 
i6[ ] or the coldness of the night, being she was naked, did kill her;" 
"to take care yt no Indians sit down to Inhabit in ye Neck;" Thomas 
Arnold was given seven days to remove the stones he had rolled into the 
highway; a common was laid out between Bailey's Cove and the Great 
Swamp ; the sergeant was fined five shillings for not attending town meet- 
ing and town court; from 1660 frequent reference is made to the four- 
mile line, the seven-mile line and the twenty-mile line. The story of these 
boundary lines should be told. 

Fox Hill at Fox Point on Providence Neck was the starting point 
or goal from which all the general surveys began. This was practically 
the eastern bound of the sachems' deed on the line of the Pawtucket 
river, while the southern boundary line was the Pawtuxet river. The 
four-mile was located in a westerly direction from Foxes Hill and ran 
north and south, with Hipses Rock as -the four-mile bound of the Wil- 
liams deed of 1638. The memorandum of 1639 increased the territorial 
limits of occupation as understood by all, opening the valleys of the 
Pocassett, the Pawtuxet, the Womasquatucket and the Pawtucket to the 
settlers. The Harris-Williams controversy arose over the interpretation 
to be given to the postscript deed. Harris claimed that the deed should be 
interpreted in its broadest sense to extend as far to the west as the 
Shawomet deed, which was twenty miles to the Connecticut line, and 
including the lands and streams north of Warwick. The details of the 
debate on this vexed question cannot be stated in our brief story. It is 
enough to state that the proprietors won out against Mr. Williams' pro- 
test and most earnest labors for twenty years. Their first victory is 
recorded in the early records of Providence, volume ii, page 129, as fol- 
lows : "// is ordered by this present Assembly that the Boundes of this 
Tozvne of Providence, shall be sett Eight Miles up the streame of Pau- 
tuckctt River beginning at the Hill called Foxes Hill and upon a straight 
line west Seven Miles from the aforesaid Foxes Hill." At the end of the 
seven miles west from Fox Hill, the boundary line of Providence was "to 
goe upon A Strait line North unto pautuckett River and upon A Straight 
line South unto pautuxett Rivers." This seven-mile line became the 
eastern boundary of the towns of Scituate, Gloucester and Burrillville, and 
remains so. 

At about the same time, March 26, 1660, the town of Providence 



PROVIDENCE TOWN AND PROPRIETARY 217 

voted to purchase the lands for twenty miles west between the two rivers, 
Pawtuxet and Woonsquatucket. Earlier in the year, Thomas Olney, Sr., 
WilHam Wickenden, John Sayles and Thomas Hopkins had been ordered 
to meet the Pawtuxet men, Harris, Field, the Arnolds and others, to con- 
sider "what hath been lately done with the Indians concerning our planta- 
tions." It is certain that an agreement was made with Canjainquecut for 
the purchase of the whole territory of Rhode Island north of Warwick 
and west of the seven-mile line, although there is no record of the pur- 
chase or of the price paid. In confirmation of it, it was ordered on April 
27, 1660, "that this Towne shall give unto Canjainquant's son, Ga'au'a- 
quaomitt, 30 shillings in peague, provided he Sett his hand unto the deede 
which his father Subscribed in owneing his father's Act." On the same 
day, Thomas Walling, Henry Brown, William Harris, William Wicken- 
den. John Fenner and Daniel Brown were chosen to "sett the Boundes of 
or plantation Twenty Miles from Foxes Hill, Westward up in the Coun- 
try." Each man to receive four shillings a day for his work, with liberty 
to hire one Indian as a guide. At this time the number of proprietors was 
increased from fifty-four to one hundred and one, the maximum number. 
A purchase right was valued at twenty shillings in peag. If the money 
was not paid within a specified time, the land right was forfeited to the 
proprietary. At a meeting of proprietors held February 3, 1661, the 
names of twenty-three persons are recorded, including William Harris, 
Thomas Olney. Thomas Angell and Roger Williams. At about the same 
time Daniel and Joseph Williams, sons of Roger, were granted a purchase 
right of land, probably about one hundred and twenty acres. 

A recognition of the services of Dr. John Clarke, then in England, 
appears in a vote of the proprietors to make a gift to him of a purchase 
right of land. 

After the extension of the territorial bounds of the town of Provi- 
dence from the four-mile to the seven-mile line, it seemed wise to lay out 
a new town on the northwest border in the rich valley lands of the 
Woonasquatucket, south of Wyonkeag Hill, in the present town of Smith- 
field. Thomas Olney, Sr., William Carpenter and John Browne were a 
committee in 1662 "to vew Landes about Wayunkeake, to see where it 
will be convenient to place A Towne, And how the Towne shall be placed 
and in what manner." In 1663 Mary Walling asks liberty to sell her right 
of land at Wayunkeag. Also William Hawkins and John Steere are 
granted fifty acres of land apiece at Wyonkeag, provided thev will build 
houses, cut hay, and live for three years on the land given them. Roger 
Williams was given the third choice of fifty acres at the new town. 
Thomas Olney, father and son, and Matthew Waller are other purchasers 
of fifty-acre lots. The town was not founded; it was laid out and that 
was the end of it. 



2i8 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

It seems bootless to enter into the details of the forty years of debate 
and personal conflicts at Providence growing out of the property condi- 
tions and claims. The endless varieties of the wliole trouble may be briefly 
summed up thus : In March, 1638, Mr. Williams became the sole owner 
of Providence Plantations, a gift of the Xarragansett sachems. In Octo- 
ber, 163S, he sold twelve-thirteenths of this large property to a syndicate 
of which he w^as one, owning and enjoying the privileges of a single share- 
holder. Differences soon arose between Mr. Williams and his associates 
in the corporation as to an extension of the territorial bounds. Harris, 
Olney. the Arnolds, Carpenter, Fenncr, Field and others sought to carry 
the western boundary at first seven miles and afterwards twenty miles 
west of Fox Hill. Mr. Williams held to the four-mile limit at Xeutakon- 
kanut, and opposed further extensions. Had his policy been pursued, 
Providence in its narrow territorial domain would have lost existence 
in [Massachusetts or Connecticut. Fortunately the extensionists prevailed 
and in iWjo the victory was won for the progressive party, which by skill- 
ful management on the part of its land-controlling leaders constituted a 
large part of the men of Providence, the whole population not exceeding 
two hundred. It is not a pleasant task to portray the singular idiosyn- 
cracics and eccentricities of Roger \Mlliams during the period from 1638 
to 1660. Let it suffice to show the general attitude of both parties by a 
single reference with a brief interpretation. 

On the 27th of October, 1660. Roger Williams wrote to the "Towne." 
The letter has been lost. The answer of the "Towne," drawn up by 
Thomas Olney. William Harris and Arthur Fenner may be found on pages 
134. 135, volume ii, "Early Records of Providence." The letter in reply is 
dated the same day, October 27, 1660, and is as follows : 

Sr : — Wee Received yor letter, and it being read in the ears of or 
Tow'ne, they Considered this Answere. 

That from these wordes in or Evidence taken by you, wliich are there; 
the Landes upon Mosliassuck and Wanas(|uatuckett : which Landes com- 
prehend Mussawasacutt etr ; are ors already, and when wee plant there 
wee will Agree with the Indians Either to Remove or to ffence: 

2ly. \\'hereas you say the Indians have subjected to the Bay, W^ee 
say they were subject to the Nauheggansett Sachims when you bought the 
Land which wee now have, and yor selfe propose yett to buy; And wee 
Know, that if wee lett goe or True hold already Attained, wee shall (if 
not orselves, yett or posteritye) Smart for itt, and wee conceive herein 
that wee doe truely understand what yor Selfe doth not. .-\.nd if \'or Apre- 
hension take place, as wee hope it never will, in those yor proposalls, wee 
liappely may See what wee conceive You derive not, the Ruine of what 
you have given name to (viz) poore providence. As for the Natives Com- 
plaineing, wee have not wronged them, any further than Satissfaction, 
that wee Know of nor shall not. What there wronges to us are wee have 
hetherto rather Smoothered, then Complained, yett wee must tell you that 



PROMDEXCE TOWN AND PROPRIETARY 219 

wee sliall not be averce to any faire gratuetys, Either to take them of of 
there tieldes, or otherwise alwayes haveing Respect unto the act of the 
Sachims whom you have formerly so much Honnored, And herein if you 
can Accomphsh wee shall be ready to Asist with further pay, upon or 
former groundes, otherwise wee shal not medle, And forbid any so to doe, 
Thus in Love, Though in BriefYe, Returned Wee rest yor Neighbours, 

The Towne of Providence. 
By me Tho. Olney Junr., Clarke in the behalfe of the Towne. 

The tenor of Mr. Williams' letter must be studied from the reply of 
the whole "Towne," alias the proprietary. A few months before, the 
"Towne" had voted to extend its limits on the west to the Connecticut line 
and on the north to the Massachusetts line. The new territory included 
lands in the northwestern parts, owned and occupied by the Nipmuc tribe. 
These were the Indians "subjected to the Bay," formerly subject to the 
Narragansetts. The proprietors had evidently learned that Mr. Williams' 
purpose was to secure a larger interest in his own right in Indian lands 
than he then possessed. His letter was a protest to the "Towne" against 
its action in extending the town limits twenty miles west from Fox Hill. 
He tries to discourage the proprietors by suggesting a possible war with 
Massachusetts, stating his "apprehensions" as to the future of the Provi- 
dence settlement. The "Towne" tells him that it has already settled with 
the Indians justly, that they will pay more for the purchase, if necessary, 
and that in the judgment of the town meeting, the future of "poor provi- 
dence" is bound up in their action, however much such a course runs 
counter to Mr. Williams' views. The plans of the "Towne" were carried 
out, the results fully vindicating the policy adopted. Mr. Williams con- 
tinued in the minority party, often a small one, in the advocacy of a nar- 
row and conservative policy till his death. 

The charter of 1663, with its new interpretation of democracy as the 
protector of the social, civil and religious rights of the individual man as 
interpreted by Dr. John Clarke elevated new standards of citizenship, 
created a sovereign state and placed the colony of Rhode Island, after a 
struggle of a quarter of a century, at the head of the column of world 
democracies. 



CHAPTER XII 



GOVERNMENT BY ARBITRATION 



CHAPTER XII. 

GOVERNMENT BY ARBITRATION. 

In the year 1640. we have the first attempt at an agreement of the 
settlers at Providence "in way of government.'" At that time several 
persons, members of the town corporation and others, after many con- 
siderations and consultations of our own State and also of States abroad 
in way of government, agreed on "government by way of arbritration." 

Four persons — Robert Coles, Chad Brown. William Harris and John 
Warner — were chosen by the land corporation to act as arbitrators in the 
"many differances amongst us." The powers and duties of these persons 
are stated by them as follows : "We * * * being freely chosen by the 
consent of our loving Friends and Neighbors the inhabitants of this 
Towne of providence; having many differances amongst us: They being 
Freely willing and also bound themselves to stand to our Arbetration in 
all differences amongst us ; to rest contented in our determination ; being 
so betrusted, wee have seriously and carefully endeavored to waye and 
consider all those differences ; being desirous to bring them to unitye and 
peace. Although our abilities are farr short in the due examination of 
such weightye thinges, yet so farr as wee cann conceive laieing all things 
together, we have gon the fairest and equallest way to produce peace." 

These men were chosen as referees by the Town Fellowship to act 
in its behalf and on the behalf of all others not of the Corporation, who 
may not sign the articles of agreement. The only persons bound morally 
or legally to the decisions are the signers of the "Agreement." As there 
are no fines or punishments imposed and as there is no magistrate of any 
kind to enforce the decision, the act or judgment of the referees is wholly 
a matter of voluntary acceptance and fulfilment on the part of both 
parties in interest. 

The first agreement of differences related to the boundary line sep- 
arating the particular properties or lands in Pawtuxet "from the Genneral 
Comon of our Towne of Providence." This was "a straight line from 
a fresh spring, being in the gully, at the head of the Coave running in by 
the poynt of Land called Saxeffrax unto the Towne of Mashapauge to 
an Oake Tree standing nexte unto the Corne Field, being at this tyme 
the nearest Corne Field unto Pautuxett." 

The second agreement gave the five disposers, the disposing of the 
common lands of Providence, also "the Towne Stock and all Gennerall 
things." No one was to be admitted a townsman except on a six days 
notice to the inhabitants, "to consider if any have just cause to show 
against receiveing of him." Each person accepted must subscribe to this 



224 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

agreement. Any person wronged in the opinion of the disposers, may 
have a trial. A clerk was to be chosen to keep record "of all thinges 
belonging to the Towne and being in the Comon ; we agree as formerly 
hath been the libertyes of the Towne, so still to hold forth Liberty of 
Conscience." 

The third agreement recites that "Government by way of Arbitra- 
tion" has been adopted "after many considerations and consultations of 
our owne State and also of States abroad in way of Government." The 
princijile on which this new style of governing was founded was, "If 
men Refuse that which is but comon humanetye between man and man, 
then to compell such unreasonable persons to a reasonable way." 

The method was this : The five disposers had power to compel a per- 
son to choose two men to arbitrate his case ; if he should refuse to arbi- 
trate, then these two men so chosen, should select two other men to act 
with them, two of the four to act for and represent each party ; in case 
of a hearing and a decision, the party at fault to pay the arbitrators. If 
the four men could not agree and settle the dispute, then the five disposers 
were "to chuse three men to put an end to it, and for the Arbetrators 
to follow no imployment tell the cause be ended, without consent of the 
whole, that have to doe with the cause." Agreement fourth provided that 
the disposers might prosecute any offender, in case the matter was not 
taken up by the injured party. 

The fifth agreement required all the inhabitants to assist in the pur- 
suit and seizure of any offender; in case of a "Hubbub" without just 
cause, the part)' making shall be held responsible. The sixth agreement 
provided for calling a special meeting of the town to consider causes 
demanding immediate attention. The seventh required the disposers to 
see that every man had a deed of his land. The eighth required the dis- 
posers to meet once a month "upon Gennerall thinges and at the quarter 
day to yield to a new choyse and give up their old accountes." The last 
four agreements relate to minor details in administration. 

These twelve articles of agreement were signed by thirty-seven per- 
sons as "those things which we have Gennerally Concluded on for or 
(our) peace, wee desiring or (our) Loving Friendes to receive as or 
(our) absolute determination." 

As this document of 1640 is the first declaration of the land proprie- 
tors of Providence, relating to civil government, and as it continued for 
nine years the working scheme of administration of public affairs until the 
issuance and acceptance of a town charter, from the General Assembly, 
under date of March 14, 1648-9, it is worth our while to give it careful 
study. 

It is noteworthy that this is the first paper on record of any sort 
emanating from the settlers of Providence that has a fi.xed date as to its 



GOVERNMENT BY ARBITRATION 225 

draft. It was on July 27, 1640, four years after the Arnolds and Mr. 
Williams came to Providence and about two years after the formation 
of the Town Fellowship of Thirteen Proprietors. It probably originated 
with the committee of four men — Chad Browne, Robert Coles, William 
Harris and John Warner — chosen by the Proprietors. The first signer, 
Chad Browne, was probably the writer of the paper ; the order of the sig- 
natures and the dates of signing are unknown. All that we have to rely 
upon as to this important instrument is a copy of the same on page 124, 
Vol. I, Suffolk Deeds, Boston, Massachusetts, and a second copy in the 
early records of the city of Providence, made March 28, 1662, by Thomas 
Olney. Jr., town clerk. When the plan went into operation is wholly a 
matter of conjecture. As its value and efficiency rested entirely on vol- 
untary subscriptions, it is to be assumed that a fair number of the thirty- 
eight names were appended at an early day and that its workings began 
in the year of its inauguration. While the order of arrangement of 
names is not debatable, it is reasonable to suppose that the committee 
were the first signers, that Mr. Williams and his son Joseph signed later. 
We know that Jane Seare did not become a land owner until 1642, and 
that Gregory Dexter did not reach Providence before 1644. Mr. Chapin 
thinks that Matthew Waller, Edward Hart, Hugh Hewitt, Thomas Hop- 
kins, John Lippitt, Joan Tiler, Christopher Unthank, Williams Hawkins 
were among the later signers. The names of others of the original fifty- 
two Proprietors, who did not sign were Thomas Painter, John Greene, 
Sr. and Jun., Thomas James, Widow Reeve, Joshua Verin, Ahce Daniels, 
John Sweet, Francis Weston, Ezekiel Holliman, Daniel Abbott, George 
Rickard, Thomas Hopkins, Matthew Weston and John Lippitt. 

We are now face to face with the problem of determining the nature 
and status of the Providence plan in directing civil affairs. Let us meet 
it fairly and decide it intelligently and justly. It has been affirmed for a 
long period of years that Roger Williams was the founder of the first 
State in the world with full liberty in civil and religious concernments. 
Was the polity at Providence that of a true democracy ? Did it proclaim 
religious liberty? Was Roger Williams the founder of the civil order 
that held sway in Providence for nine years, from 1640 to 1649? 

Government is the system of polity, a body of principles and rules 
by which the affairs of a community are administered. A democratic 
government is one that springs from all the people, is instituted for the 
well being of all the people and is governed by rules, laws and adminis- 
trators or rulers, chosen by a majority of all the people. Real democracy 
rests on individual right and rights, on the supremacy of law as the pro- 
tector of such rights and on courts of justice and officers who shall com- 
pel obedience to the law, civil or criminal. Laws, without penalties and 

R 1-15 



226 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

magistrates to execute them, are worse than worthless — they invite law- 
lessness and anarchy. 

There is another fundamental principle of democracy, not to be 
overlooked. It is that for self-protection and durability, the right of the 
people to rule involves the right to claim the service of all in the protection 
of a community from enemies, within and without. An allied principle 
is that which not only claims protection of person and property, but 
which calls upon each member to surrender a portion of his possessions 
for the benefit of all. This we call equitable taxation service, one of the 
bulwarks of a democratic state. Can Providence of 1640 stand under 
these tests? 

Providence, from October, 1638, to March, 1649, was a Proprietary. 
The ownership of all the lands of the Plantations was, from March, 1638, 
to October, 1638, in Roger Williams. At the latter date he made twelve 
others joint and equal owners with himself of the same territory. These 
Proprietors controlled the sale of all lands and the admission of all inhab- 
itants to what they called the "Town Fellowship." Tlie powers, rights 
and duties of the Proprietary were as clear and well defined in the Seven- 
teenth Century as are those of any corporate body in the Twentieth Cen- 
tur>-. For reference to the corporation known as a Proprietary reference 
is made to a digest of laws relating to the New England Proprietaries, 
prepared by Hon. Samuel Ames, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of 
Rhode Island. In the case of the Providence Proprietary it was self- 
incorporated ; a voluntary compact existed : the proprietors assembled, 
passed votes and orders as to their common property, admitted members 
and adopted such rules as seemed necessary for their own affairs and 
the relations to the townspeople without the Proprietary. 

This body existed for two centuries and its history is outlined in The 
Annals of Providence, written by Hon. William R. Staples, the last Pro- 
prietor's clerk. The Providence Proprietary or "Town Fellowship" or 
"Town" as it was afterwards called, was a land-rich, purse-poor monop- 
oly, that controlled the affairs of the community, with or without its 
consent. Its origin was not from the people, but from one man — Roger 
Williams. It was not a civic body, but a private, independent land cor- 
poration. It was supreme in authority, recognizing no superior in the 
Plantations. Its powers and privileges were not created and established 
by the inhabitants of Providence nor was the Corporation under inspec- 
tion of the people, nor was it responsible to the people. The Proprietary 
could make laws only for its own body. It could not rightfully impose 
any laws or obligations upon the people. It possessed no civic functions 
and could therefore exercise no control of any sort over civil or ecclesi- 
astical affairs. Any declarations it might make, of whatever nature, ap- 



GOVERNMENT BY ARBITRATION 227 

plied solely to its own membership, and in no manner related themselves 
to the opinions or acts of others. 

From 1636 to 1650 there was no government "of, by and for the 
people" in Providence. There were no laws, no courts, no magistrates, 
no constable or justice, no warranty deed and no legal papers executed, 
no tax, no public improvements, no means of defence provided. Mr. 
Williams wrote to Gov. Winthrop: "We have no Patent, nor doth the 
face of magistracy suit with our present conditions." 

The "Agreements," to which we have given attention, originated in 
the Providence Proprietary. All the signers were members of the Pro- 
prietary. No person dwelling at Providence in 1640, outside the Pro- 
prietary, signed the Agreement. It was a land-holder's agreement, volun- 
tarily made, and applicable only to those who signed it. There was a 
large number of landless people, not proprietors, who had been admitted 
to "freedom of inhabitation," who had built log-houses on the Planta- 
tions or camped in the forests who were "discontented with their estate" 
and sought "the freedom of vote also and equality;" who were denied 
both, either for want of money to purchase a seat in the Proprietary, or 
like Samuel Gorton, who, having money, failed to satisfy the Proprietary 
that they were desirables. Whether the government by arbitration related 
itself to this body of people, we have no hint. They were probably a law 
unto themselves and exercised themselves in the fullest freedom as 
thorns in the sides of the Proprietors. Certainly, men of the ability of 
Mr. Gorton, financially and mental, could openly and boldly declare, "that 
the whole Providence landed oligarchy, with its ridiculous system of 
government by arbitration, was nothing more nor less than a high-handed 
encroachment upon the public domain, and a usurpation upon the com- 
mon law, both of which abuses he, as a public functionary in ordinary, 
was called upon to redress." (Richman). 

As proof of the weakness of the arbitration government, the first 
important decision under it, that relating to a judgment for £15 against 
Francis Weston, resulted in civil war and bloodshed at Pawtuxet, in 
which some of the disposers had a part. Judge Staples says, "The new 
system (arbitration), by its weakness and lack of energy, gave rise to 
difficulties, which, to some of the inhabitants seemed inherent and insur- 
mountable. The great liberty which all enjoyed was abused by some to 
licentiousness. From the denial of the right of government to interfere 
in matters of conscience, some claimed the right to do with impunity 
whatsoever they said conscience dictated. Others were accused of deny- 
ing all power in magistrates." What Providence needed in 1636-40 was 
law, magistracy, government,— without these, all loud sounding terms of 
"liberty of conscience," "distressed in conscience," "liberty," "democracie," 
were empty words, having no significance in actual government, and only 



228 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

exercised in the direction of uncontrolled license, the absence of law is 
the paradise of the law-breaker. 

A complete collapse of "Government by Arbitration" at Providence 
occurred on the 15th of November, 1641, when directly following the 
Gorton-Weston "Hubbub" at Papaquinapaug, thirteen of the original 
signers of the "Agreement" signed a letter addressed to the Governor 
and Assistants of the Massachusetts Bay Colony "to lend us a neighbour- 
like helping hand" in present troubles and others threatening. This was 
a confession that the Providence government was wholly inadequate for 
the protection of persons and property, to say nothing of its absolute fail- 
ure to establish a democracy consonant with "freedom in religious con- 
cernments." All the professions of civil and religious liberty at Providence, 
under the Williams scheme are hollow pretense, of the quality of "sound- 
ing brass and tinkling cymbals." The names of the men who made the 
distressing appeal to the Bay Colony (Chapin's Documentary History of 
Rhode Island, pp. 134-137) are: William Field, William Harris, William 
Carpenter, William Wickenden, William Reynolds, Thomas Harris, 
Thomas Hopkins, Hugh Bewitt, Joshua Winsor, Benedict Arnold, Wil- 
liam Man, William Hunkinger and Robert West. Gov. Winthrop re- 
plied : "We answered them that we could not levy any war, etc. without 
a General Court. For counsel we told them that except they did submit 
themselves to some jurisdiction, either Plimouth or ours, we had no call- 
ing or warrant to interpose in their contentions, but if they were once 
subject to any, then they had a calling to protect them." Beneath the 
diplomatic cloak of a shrewd reply appears the figure of the Bay in the 
attitude of a willing recipient of the Providence Plantations. 

It would appear that Gorton and some of his associates, after the 
"Hubbub" removed to the south side of the Pawtuxet, occupying and 
purchasing lands which Robert Cole bought of Mr. Williams, January, 
1639. In December, 1641, Benedict Arnold bought of Miantonomi, a 
large tract of land on the south side of the PawUixet. In addition to this 
purchase, William Arnold, William Carpenter and Robert Cole obtained 
of Socononoco, Sachem at Pawtuxet, in 1643, all the lands on the north 
bank of the Pawtuxet, included in a previous sale to Roger Williams, 
which had been resold to the Pawtuxet purchasers by Mr. Williams. 
From our standpoint of judgment, this act has no reasonable interpreta- 
tion or justification, unless on the grounds that most of the owners of 
the north purchase had assented to and withdrawn from an agreement to 
transfer their allegiance to the Bay. The next step of the Arnold, Car- 
penter-Cole Company was submission of their persons and properties to 
the Bay Colony, which was done on September 8, 1642. The ubiquitous 
Cole, expelled from the Bay, a disciple of Mr. Williams, later a friend of 



GOVERNMENT BY ARBITRATION 229 

Gorton, is now found pledging his fealty to the Bay after an expiration 
of three years. The Records of the General Court bear these items : 

Willi. Arnold, Rob. Coale, Willi. Carpenter & Bened. Arnold, his 
Company upon their petition were taken under or government & pro- 
tection. 

Willi. Arnold, Robert Coale, Benedict Arnold & Willi. Arnold is to 
see to keepe the peace in their lands. 

Winthrop's journal contains the following account of the secession 
and acquisition : 

At this Court also, four of Providence, who could not consort with 
Gorton and that company, and therefore were continually injured and 
molested by them, came and offered themselves and their lands, etc., to 
us, and were accepted under our government and protection. This we 
did partly to rescue these men from unjust violence, and partly to draw 
in the rest in those parts, either under ourselves or Plimouth, who now 
lived under no government, but grew very oflfensive, and the place was 
likely to be of use to us, especially if we should have occasion of sending 
out against any Indians of Narragansett and likewise for an outlet into 
the Narragansett Bay, and seeing it came without our seeking, and would 
be no charge to us, we thought it not wisdom to let it slip. 

Prior to the establishment of the "Government by Arbitration." at 
Providence, 1640. seven English Colonies had been established on the 
Northern Atlantic Coast: Virginia in 1607, Plymouth in 1620, Massa- 
chusetts Bay 1628- 1 630, Maryland 1632, Aquidneck 1638, Hartford 1638, 
and New Haven 1639. All of these Colonies were organized under 
charters, organic laws, declarations or compacts. In these several acts 
creating governments for the people within the several jurisdictions 
named were certain declarations of the principles of government which 
was to be administered, the rights and duties of citizenship were defined, 
laws, orders and ordinances were to be made by a majority vote of the 
people, officers were to be elected to administer the laws. Representative 
Assemblies were ordained, courts of justice were provided for in all the 
Colonies, with "full and absolute power and authority to correct, punish, 
pardon, govern and rule" all the people falling within the several prov- 
inces named, to the great and noble end, that all may "live together in the 
Feare and true Worship of Almighty God, Christian Peace and Civil 
Quietness, each with other, whereby everyone may with more Safety, 
Pleasure and Profit enjoye that whereunto they shall attaine with great 
Pain and Perill." 

Aquidneck, receiving its grant on March 24, 1638, the same day that 
Mr. Williams obtained the gift of Providence Plantations, and prior to 
the date of "Arbitration" agreements at Providence, had established "a 



230 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

Bodie Politick," founded two towns, Portsmouth and Newport, estab- 
lished a civil polity, elected town officers, created courts of justice, elected 
magistrates, surveyed and deeded lands, laid out highways, voted and 
assessed taxes on all the property of all the people and to conclude, had 
formed the Colony of Rhode Island, with a Governor, a General Assem- 
bly, a Colonial Seal, a Colonial clerk and treasurer and a court for the 
Colony. 

A careful study of the workings of the other Colonial organisms, 
outside of Providence, shows the early establishment of regular represen- 
tative assemblies or legislatures, as law-making bodies, governors and 
ordinate Colonial officers elected by the people, magistrates to see to the 
administration of the laws, and courts of justice to support the law-mak- 
ing power. In each the main features of a democratic polity found ex- 
pression in larger or smaller measure. The early charters and constitu- 
tions incorporated the features of the democratic state and all were 
welded into a well ordered unity in the experiences of a century of 
Colonial life following settlement 

We have already show'n that Providence was nothing more nor less 
than an English Proprietary from 1638 to 1649 — a land corporation — not 
a democracy. The town had no declaration of democratic principles, no 
laws, no town officers of a civil polity, no magistrates. Judge Staples 
says Providence did not elect any town officers until 1651, two years 
after it was incorporated as a town by the General Assembly. No taxes 
were assessed, no public improvements begun. Williams and Winthrop 
designate the town as "Poor Providence," on account of its troubled state 
of affairs. Individualism is rampant; civil order is couchant. Dr. Rich- 
man, in "Rhode Island : Its Making and Its Meaning," writes : "Now 
that the island of Aquidneck had become a political entity, the contrast 
between it and the entity (or non-entity) Providence is marked in the 
extreme. By Providence there was sjTnbolized individualism — both re- 
ligious and political — a force centrifugal, disjunctive and even disruptive. 
By Aquidneck (and especially by the Newport part of it) there was 
symbolized collectivism — a collectivism thoroughly individualized as to 
religion, but in politics conjunctive and centripetal. * * * During the 
age of Roger Williams that which we are bidden to contemplate on the 
shores of Narragansett Bay is a struggle for supremacy between separa- 
tism and collectivism." Prof. Masson calls Mr. Williams "The arch-in- 
dividualist." Mr. W. B. Weeden speaks of "The vagaries of his individ- 
ual will." John Quincy Adams characterized him as "Conscientiously 
contentious." 

It is easy to understand why Mr. Williams could not found a democ- 
racy in Rhode Island ; he was not a man of the democratic spirit and 
temper. Extreme individualism is the opposite of democracy. As like 



GOVERNMENT BY ARBITRATION 231 

cultivates like, Mr. Williams' spirit and policy indoctrinated those about 
him, and made them separatist. He encouraged and taught separatism, 
which is anti-democratic. There seems to have been but one common 
impulse at Providence — that was the acquisition of lands. Nearly all of 
the records for the first fifty years relate to the lay-out, bounds and 
transfer of landed estates. The first town record of civil affairs appears 
under date of April 27, 1649. "Ordered that or (our) Constable shall 
have a staffe made himi whereby he shall be known to have the authority 
of the Towne-Constable." 

Another supreme factor of Mr. Williams' individualism was the 
assumption of autocracy — the supremacy of the individual in matters of 
common concern, the setting up of the personal will and conscience as 
superior to the community will and conscience. This was the cause of 
Mr. Williams' troublesome experiences of Massachusetts. The Bay 
people and the Plymouth people did not interfere with Mr. Williams' 
personal or religious liberty. They did justly object to his arrogant 
attempt to compel church and state to submit to the vagaries of his mind, 
conscience and will. Such a temper of mind cannot endure the restraints 
of law and ordinances nor has it any patience to submit to magistracy. 
Mr. Williams tells us once and again that Providence cannot submit to 
"magistracy," which means that they would not submit to law, for the 
magistrate is the expression and representation of law and social order, 
and both are foundations of democracy. "No law and no magistrate" 
spell anarchy, not democracy. The French Revolution overthrew law 
and magistrates and the streets of Paris ran with blood. The individual- 
ism of Mr. Williams and his followers at Providence opposed "the face of 
magistracy," the protector of all law and democracy. Chief Justice 
Thomas Durfee, of Rhode Island, states that "Historians urge that he 
(Roger Williams) was eccentric, pugnacious, persistent, troublesome; 
undoubtedly he was." 

The finest test of a democratic community is the open door, the 
hospitable spirit. Mr. Williams wrote to Gov. Winthrop that he intended 
to act as door-keeper at Providence, admitting only such as he judged fit. 
This plan was changed to that of control of admission by land owners 
and freemen by the majority vote of the Proprietors. This was not 
democracy — it was aristocracy — a far different principle in civil affairs. 
A community that feared, and was organized to prevent, the advent of a 
great body of people from the Bay Colony, could not be a Democracy. 
The denial of admission and lands to Samuel (jorton and Randall Holden 
was not Democracy — it was Absolutism in government. Mr. Arnold says 
of Gorton : "He was one of the most remarkable men that ever lived." 
Yet he was denied a share in the government of Providence. 



232 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

"Government by Arbitration," is the full and final confession that 
the Providence experiment was not democratic. It would call for the 
practise of a lively sophistry to establish a momentary assent to the belief 
that a land corporation, established for business ends, was a civil com- 
monwealth and that the operations of the "Agreement" fulfilled the 
functions of "a free church in a free state." Such a visionary view of 
the Providence attempt to set up an absurd and impractical form of ad- 
ministering civil affairs, in the absence of the most elementary' principles, 
conditions, and safeguards of Democracy, can scarcely e.xist. Yet, Mr. 
Williams, the man credited as the father and founder of American Dem- 
ocracy, by Mr. Strauss, in a letter to the townsmen of Providence, dated 
June 15, 1681, prays the town "that our ancient use of arbitration be 
brought in esteem again." In his last days, he clings to the government 
vagaries of his youth which were styled by Mr. Henry C. Dorr as "at- 
tempts in Providence to live without law and govern without government." 

Concerning this form of organization, Mr. Irving R. Richman in 
"Rhode Island : Its Making and Its Meaning," 1908, wrote as follows : 

With the year 1640, politics at Providence took on a new phase. The 
anorganic in government was compelled to give place to the organic — a 
low form of the organic, it is true, but organic to a certain extent none 
the less. * * * How little was gained in organic effectiveness by the 
substitution of the plan of government by arbitration for that of govern- 
ment by majority of householders becomes apparent in the fact that the 
only executive power provided under the plan first mentioned was that 
of "the whole inhabitants," brought into activity by the "hubbub" or hue 
and cry : There was still no constable. Thus the Providence body politic — 
a low and imperfect organism, its vital currents baulked in their courses, 
maintained a weak and miserable existence for several years. 




CHAPTER XIII 



ROGER WILLIAMS AND THE NARRAGANSETTS 



CHAPTER XIII. 
ROGER WILLIAMS AND THE NARRAGANSETTS. 

As early as July, 1636, we may safely assume that Roger Williams, 
William Arnold, William Harris, John Smith and William Carpenter had 
built squatter huts on the lands between Moshassuck Hill and the Paw- 
tuxet river, without anything but squatter rights to the land on which 
they were built. It was uncertain whose lands they were on, for both 
tribes, the Wampanoags and the Narragansetts, laid claim to the lands on 
the west bank of the Pawtucket, and Mr. Williams had probably been told 
by Massasoit that he owned lands in that section, proof of which was 
established later by the payment of considerable sums to the sachem to 
e.xtinguish his title. Up to this time, it is safe to assume that Mr. Wil- 
liams' acquaintance had been limited to the sachems and principal men 
and women of the Wampanoags. The reasons for this belief are that for 
about three years Mr. Williams lived at Plymouth, whose people were in 
constant contact and communication with their allies, the Wampanoags, 
while at the same time they were not in friendly relations with the Narra- 
gansetts, between whom and Massasoit's people hatreds were cherished and 
hostilities carried on. Captain Myles Standish and the Boston military 
being engaged in the war between the two tribes, including the Pequots, 
also hostile to the tribe of Plymouth Colony. We know that Mr. Wil- 
liams was in very friendly and business relations with Massasoit, a fact 
that would preclude and forbid equally cordial intercourse with Canonicus 
and the Narragansetts. Mr. Williams was a man of an impulsive nature 
and quick and independent in the initiative. He was not long in doubt as 
to the tribal ownership of the lands at Moshassuck, and in accordance 
with the usual custom of the white colonists, he sought and easily found 
Canonicus, if indeed the old chieftain had not first found him. The terni 
of non-acquaintance must have been brief, for Mr. Williams had set out 
on a campaign "to do the natives good." Of necessity he must live near 
or among the natives he was to serve, he must have a house for his family, 
then of four persons and a fifth to arrive in the October days, and he 
must have land he could call his own to cultivate. The first meeting of 
Roger Williams, e.xile, missionary, with the two great sachems of the 
Narragansetts, Canonicus and Miantonomi, is a subject worth while for a 
Rhode Island artist. The details of the scene at Moshassuck or Narra- 
gansett imagination must furnish. That it was cordial on the part of both 
parties admits of no doubt. Mr. Williams" generous nature must have 
found expression in gifts that satisfied the eye and mind of the royal 
chieftains. Writing from Narragansett, under date of June 18, 1682, Mr. 
Williams says : 



236 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

I testify as in the presence of the all-making and all-seeing God that 
about fiftv years since (1636) I coming into this Narragansett country 
found a great contest between three sachems, two (to wit, Canonicus and 
Miantomonio) were against Ousamequin (Massasoit) on Plymouth side. 
I was forced to travel between them three to pacify to all their and their 
dependents' spirits of my honest intentions to live peaceably by them. * 
* * I declare * * * that were it not for the favor God gave me 
with Canonicus, none of these parts, no, not Rhode Island (Aquidneck), 
had been purchased or obtained, for I never got an>1;hing out of Canonicus 
but by gift. * * * When the hearts of my countrymen and friends 
and brethren failed me, this infinite wisdom and merits stirred up the bar- 
barous heart of Canonicus to love me as his son to his last gasp, by which 
means I had not only Miantonomo and all the lowest sachems my friends, 
but Ousamequin also, who because of my great friendship with him while 
at PIvmouth. and the authority of Canonicus. consented freely, being also 
well gratified by me (by gifts) to the Governor Winthrop and my enjoy- 
ment of Prudence, yea of Providence itself, and all the other lands I pro- 
cured of Canonicus which were upon the Point (at Narragansett), and in 
effect whatsoever I desired of him; and I never denied him (Canonicus) 
or :Miantonomo whatever they desired of me as to goods or gifts or use of 
my boats or pinnace and the travels of my own person, day and night. 

In Mr. Williams' frequent letters to Governor Winthrop, he tells him 
that one or the other Narragansett sachems wants "ten pounds of sugar," 
"six fathom of beads," "a coat," "powder," "some yellow or red for their 
heads," "a coat and also some powder," "tobacco," or some other goods 
the whites had to bestow. As to subjects of converse, the matter of lands 
must have been among the first, and the gifts of a home ("sale," Mr. Wil- 
liams says he called it ) must have been among the topics of first concern. 
Here we find Mr. Williams at the junction of two divergent paths in the 
lifework before him. Which will he choose? Shall he shape his course as 
an Indian missionary or as the founder of a new civil community? If the 
former, then he should locate at Narragansett with the people he is to call 
his mission flock. But he finds himself in the neighborhood of four or 
more families, with the prospect of more to fellow. He hesitates and 
waits the answer of the voice in his soul he calls God. But that voice leads 
him to give his new home a name, "New Providexce," a misson station 
of the Narragansett country, or a new town for freemen, white people. 
Englishmen of his own choosing. Time and circumstance solve many 
problems, and the Williams problem waits on these conditions. Meanwhile, 
he hears from Salem that some of his old parishioners are looking about 
for a new home and he sends letters of "what cheer" and encouragement 
for them to join the New Providence band. Employment he has plenty in 
providing for his family, in acquainting himself with the country, in estab- 
lishing friendly and treaty relations with the Narragansetts and in study- 
ing their customs and languages, as he had previously done with the Wam- 



ROGER WILLIAMS AND THE NARRAGANSETTS 237 

panoags. Nothing could so easily assure Canonicus of Mr. Williams' gen- 
erous heart and unselfish spirit as his hearty interest in the social and civil 
life of the great tribe and the mysteries of their language — the gift of the 
"Great Spirit." He who could interpret the secrets of human intercourse 
among savages and who, in his confidential relations with their wise men 
in council, could reveal to the children of the forest "Gitche Manito the 
Mighty, He the Master of Life," greater even than Cowtantowit, dweller 
in Sowannee, the region of balmy airs, the eternal home of the virtuous 
dead — he, indeed, must be in his own person a son of the supreme. And 
thus the reverent red men came to value the new squatter on the Moshas- 
suck and to him they would give land to his liking and an homage not 
accorded to their heroes, sages or sachems. 

LTndoubtedly, the promise of lands of considerable extent and value 
was made to Mr. Williams by Canonicus soon after the planting at Mos- 
hassuck. The deed of these lands was not signed by the Narragansett 
sachems until March 24, 1638, nearly two years later. During that period 
a number of English people from Boston and Salem and the Cape towns 
have joined the squatter community at New Providence, as Mr. Williams 
had named his new settlement, all from Mr. Williams to the latest comer 
camping on land to which they had no title. How long this was to con- 
tinue depended on the joint action of Roger W'illiams in behalf of the set- 
tlers and the owners, the Indian sachems. There was another title owner 
at this very time to whom Mr. Williams had given little consideration, 
and that was the English Crown. Virginia, Maryland. Plymouth and 
Massachusetts planters had taken the preliminary steps in obtaining the 
royal consent to lands in North Virginia before they left England. Mr. 
Williams was so little versed in colonial patents that he left foreign owner- 
ship out of his accounting, failing to realize that John Smith or Samuel 
Jones, settling on Weybosset Neck, with the King's patent in hand, could 
have subverted all his cherished plans and ambitions. English common 
law would have voided the sachems' deeds and scattered to the four winds 
all "squatter sovereign" rights or claims. But Smith and Jones did not 
put in an appearance and the title, weak as it was, inhered in Mr. Wil- 
liams. The families that sat down on the Indian lands at New Providence 
waited on Mr. Williams for a title to their lands. The promise of terri- 
tory was to him alone. William Arnold and William Harris and John 
Smith, ct a!., wanted land and often urged and argued for individual 
ownership. The legal mind of Harris was alive to the issue and his posi- 
tive nature and superior knowledge, as well as age, made him a thorn in 
Mr. Williams' sensitive sides. What Harris wanted was lands, with a 
clear title, where he could establish a permanent home, and what Harris 
wanted all the rest wanted, but none could get. The people began to talk 
loud, to clamor, and even to threaten disturbance. Questions were raised 



238 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

whether Mr. Williams intended to build a town or even to buy the land 
promised him. He was called hard names by those he had led to Moshas- 
suck. By some means he was able to prevent an open rebellion, while con- 
fidence was sorely strained by hopes delayed and promises unfulfilled. 
Mr. Williams was a man who admitted few into intimate fellowship. 
Whatever his plans were he was his own counsellor and kept his councils 
from Arnold, Harris, Smith and the rest. To Governor John Winthrop, 
of Boston, he committed his proposed plans and from him sought advice. 
The great body of the early letters of Mr. Williams is directed to "The 
right worshipful, beloved and much honored friend, Mr. Governor (Win- 
throp) of the Massachusetts, etc." He signs himself, "Your worship's 
most unworthy, unfeigned and faithful, Roger Williams." 

What was the immediate cause of Mr. Williams' act in obtaining the 
memorandum of lands of Canonicus in 1638? Prior to this we may rest 
assured that personal indecision was the reason for a delay that was inter- 
preted by many as a surrender of the proposed gift. Events transpiring 
in Boston in 1637 are destined to bring to a practical decision the ques- 
tion as to the permanency of the New Providence settlement. On Novem- 
ber 2, 1637, Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, leader of the Antinomian Independ- 
ents of Boston, was banished from the Bay Colony. Within four months 
from that date about sixty families were either exiled or ordered under the 
bands of the colony, pointing to expatriation, and the nucleus of a new mi- 
gration drew up the Boston-Portsmouth compact for a new settlement 
wherever God's leading should be recognized. In the early months of 
1637-38, probably in February, Mr. Williams is surprised by a visit from 
three most unexpected guests from Boston — William Coddington, Dr. 
John Clarke and a third, name unknown — who came to Providence to 
advise with Mr. Williams "about our design." Mr. Williams presented 
two places in the neighborhood, Sowams (Barrington) and Aquidneck. 
A visit to Myles Standish at Plymouth by Mr. Williams and the Clarke 
party compels them to give up all hope of the former place and opens 
expectations as to the island, Aquidneck, owned and occupied by the 
Narragans6tts. To the purchase of that beautiful island at the mouth of 
Narragansett Bay, Mr. Williams pledges his aid and faithfully fulfills his 
mission as agent of the Boston Colony. Mr. Williams is no longer in 
doubt as to the acceptance of some form of title to the lands offered him 
by Canonicus, two years before. He had watched the Hutchinson move- 
ment from the outset and in its final stages at Boston he may have hoped 
for reenforcement of his own company at New Providence from the sub- 
stantial citizenship of the bay, but he had probably never dreamed that a 
full-fledged, well-constituted, well-disciplined body of three hundred of 
the best people of Boston would ever become permanent dwellers in his 
own neighborhood, at his own doors. The fates had so ordained and in 



ROGER WILLIAMS AND THE NARRAGANSETTS 239 

the decision was involved the future of New Providence. It may be 
safely affirmed that the decision of Mr. Williams as to a permanent settle- 
ment at Moshassuck was coincident with the decision of the Boston 
migrants to found a colony on Aquidneck. Mr. Williams is to be the 
founder of a town, not a missionary to the Narragansetts. In reality he 
becomes both. 

One paper "sold unto Roger Williams" lands at Moshassuck, lying 
between the Pavvtucket and Pawtuxet rivers. The other "sold Mr. Cod- 
dington and his friends" "the great Island of Acquednecke," etc. Both 
papers state the consideration of the sale. Both convey only a life interest. 
The memorandum of the sale to Mr. Coddington will be found in the 
chapter of the settlement at Aquidneck. The Williams Memorandum 
follows : 

At Nanhiggansick^ the 24TH of the first month commonly 
CALLED March, in ye second yeare of our plantation or planting 
at Mooshansick or Providence. 

Memorandum : That we Canaunicus and Miantunomi, the two chief 
sachems of Nanhiggansick, having two yeares since sold unto Roger Wil- 
liams ye lands and meadows upon the two fresh rivers called Mooshan- 
sick and Wanasquatucket, doe now by these presents establish and con- 
firme ye bounds of these lands, from ye river and fields at Pautuckqut, ye 
• great hill of Notquonckanet, on ye northwest, and the town of Mansha- 
pogue on ye west. 

As also in consideration of the many kindnesses and services he hath 
continually done for us, both with our friends at Massachusetts, as also at 
Quinichicutt and Apaum or Plymouth, we do freely give unto him all that 
land from those rivers reaching to Pawtuxet river, as also the grass and 
meadows upon ye said Pawtuxet river. 

In vvitnes whereof wee have hereunto set our hands. 

Ye mark of ( — ) Cannounicus. 

Ye mark of ( ) Miantunnomi. 

In ye presence of 

The mark of ( ) Sotaash. 

The mark of ( ) Assotemeweit. 

This memorandum paper, not a deed, appears as printed above in 
"The Rhode Island Colonial Records," volume i, page 18, and seems to be 
a copy of the original, although the usual reprint of what is called the 
original is so dilapidated as to be unintelligible. In 1658, on the 7th of 
the 1 2th month, William Arnold, of Pawtuxet, came into the town court 
and acknowledged that what "is wanting in the now writeing called the 
Tozvn Evidence which agreeth not with these two coppies (Harris and 
Olney) was tome by accident in his house at Pautuxett." Then follows 
the paper as printed above with the following later addition to the original 
paper, written in another hand : 



240 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

1630, AIemorandum, 3 month, 9 day. This was all againe confirmed 
by Miantenomu he acknowledged this his act and hand up the streame of 
Pautuckett and Pautuxett without limmets wee might have for our use 
of cattell. Witness hereof, 

Roger Williams, 
Benedict Arnold. 

This memorandum, a postscript to the first, taken with the first, dated 
March 24, 1638, are the accepted town evidence of the land conveyances 
from the Narragansett sachems to Roger W'illiams. It will be noticed that 
Miantonomi did not sign the second memorandum. 

Admitting these memoranda as evidence as to the lands conveyed or 
intended to be conveyed to Mr. Williams as grantee by the sachems, we 
call attention to some important features of these papers. The first point 
of note is that the sale was made two years before the transfer ; the second 
is that the sale was in reality a gift; a third does not transfer to the 
grantee the rights of Indian heirs or assigns ; a fourth is that the memo- 
randa convey to Mr. Williams only a life interest in the estate, with no 
right to sell or assign to others; a fifth is the indefiniteness of the bounds; 
a sixth is found in the second memorandum in conferring only a chattel 
right of use and not of possession. Any one of these factors would invali- 
date a good title and could not pass the tests of a good conveyancer of 
early or later New England. Whatever the incredulous assumption some 
fatuous eulogist of Mr. Williams' legal knowledge, obtained in the law 
office of Chief Justice Coke, it all disappears in the reading of a paper 
that had no legal value whatever in the presence of a royal patent. Its 
value rested entirely in good faith in the intent of the contracting parties. 
All debate as to forgery of deeds is as fruitless as the battle with wind- 
mills. The Indians relied on Mr. Williams as to a legal transfer by paper, 
while to them "a twig and turf" transfer would have been more intelligible 
and quite as binding. 

The territory included in the sachems' gift extended from Tockwot- 
ton Point at Moshassuck, up the west bank of the Pawtucket river to a 
point about a mile above the falls, thence the line ran west — northwest — 
to Absolute Swamp, on the line of the Break-Neck road, on the north 
side of Lincoln Park; thence the line turned in a southwesterly direction 
to Neutakoukanut Hill ; thence by the Pocasset river to the Pawtuxet and, 
following that stream, to the river, now called Providence, and thence by 
the west bank of the stream to Fox and Tockwotton hills. This territory 
was about six miles long and three and a half miles wide, an area of less 
than twenty-four square miles. William Harris was among the first to 
appreciate the narrow bounds of the lands for a plantation and in his 
usual clear and emphatic manner so stated it. 



ROGER WILLIAMS AND THE NARRAGANSETTS 241 

Singularly enough, Mr. Williams was in full agreement with Mr. 
Harris at this time, although a five-acre house lot would have satisfied his 
iimhitions two years before, when the missionary zeal was big within him. 
While Canonicus would have given more had Mr_ Williams asked it, he 
seems to have been prevented by the local sachems, who were unwilling 
to surrender their lands. Mr. Williams explains the situation thus: 

The sachems and I were hurried (confined) to those short bounds by 
reason of ye Indians then at Mashapog, Notakunkanet & Pawtucket, be- 
yond whom the sachems could not then go. 

In another letter to John Whip])le, he wrote: 

The bounds (were) set under the hands of Canonicus and IMianto- 
nomo, and were set so short ( as to Mashapaug and Pawtucket, and at that 
time ) because they would not intrench upon the Indians inhabiting round 
about us, for the prevention of strife between us. 

At the same time Mr. Williams expresses satisfaction personal as to 
the size of the gift, saying in tlie same letter in 1669: 

First, the grant of as large accommodations as any English in New 
England had. This the sachems always promised me, and they had cause, 
for I was a right hand unto them, to my great cost and travail. Hence I 
was sure of the Tocekeunquinit (Toskeunke) meadows, and what could 
with any show of reason have been desired. 

These quotations evidence the fact that there were Indian villages at 
Mashapaug (Auburn), at Neutakonkanut Hill and above Pawtucket 
Fields, which determined the bounds of the lands conveyed in 1638. 

During the two years since the first comers had set foot on the soil 
at Moshassuck, additions of men, women and children have been made to 
the new settlement. We know the names of a few who had cast in their 
lot at New Providence or Pawtuxtt. These are Stukeley Westcott, Thomas 
James, Robert Cole, John Greene, John Throckmorton, Thomas Olney, 
Francis Weston, Richard Waterman and Ezekiel Holiman or Holman. 
All of these came from Salem, had families and left the Bay Colony for 
Providence either under censure of the church or by order of the Gen- 
eral Court of the colony. Joshua Verin and wife, of Salem, were of the 
settlers, as was William Field, prior to 1630. 

Any attempt to name the heads of families at Providence, the num- 
ber of persons in those families and the names and number of persons 
without families is absolutely without value. The records are meagre, 
some are ineligible and the early writings called town records are without 
dates. The first date of the proprietors on town records is July 27, 1642, 
the only date of that year ; there are two dates in 1643, one in 1645, one in 

R i-ie 



242 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

1648, and four in 1649, the year of the incorporation. The historian's 
task is a difficult one, in the attempt to give a true outline of events and to 
correct the errors of earlier writers. A single instance of gross error 
appears in Henry C. Dorr"s paper on "Providence Proprietors and Free- 
holders" (Col. of R. I. H. S., volume ix, 1897, page 11). In a footnote, 
he says: "In the autumn of 1638, thirteen persons formed the Baptist 
Society. In 1637 there were fifty-four householders in Providence pur- 
chase. The exact number of the population is not known." Mr. Dorr 
should have known that Mr. Williams' deed was dated March 24, 1638, 
and that the rebaptism of the twelve occurred later. That there were 
fifty-four families in Providence is far beyond fact or belief and the 
statement tends to discredit evidential matters. In 1655, eighteen years 
later, Providence had only forty-two freemen. 

The "Memorandum" of the sachems to Roger Williams fixes the 
first landmark of Providence history, March 24, 1637-38. The "Memoran- 
dum" of the sachems to Mr. Coddington signed the same day and at the 
same place fixes the first landmark as to Aquidnock history. The memo- 
randa are cotemporaneous and both settlements. Providence and Ports- 
mouth, trace their properties to the original aboriginal ownership in March, 
1638. All that occurred at Providence or on .Aquidneck, prior to this self- 
determining date and the transactions thereof partakes of an individualis- 
tic character without political or special social value. Mr. Williams was 
master of the situation at Providence, and all lived on promises that 
waited on Mr. Williams' acts for fulfillment. He was the great "Squatter 
Sovereign" — the lord of a manor in expectancy. Not even a written 
compact held the people at Providence and Pawtuxet together. A sense 
of the need of mutual support in defense against their Indian neighbors, 
especially the Pequot tribe, was the strongest bond of union between 
them. Providence history, hitherto a theory, now begins to be, with its 
chief citizen, in absolute control of about 14,000 acres of land. 

What will he do with it? On all sides there is a demand for land. 
Those who came in advance of Mr. Williams, as well as his companions, 
demand a share in the estate. The demand is imperative and Mr. Wil- 
liams yields to the demand. Richman thinks it was the purpose of the 
grantee to use the gift for charities. As no persons were in greater need 
than Mr. Williams and his associates in exile, it would seem that properly 
charity should begin at home, unless, as he suggests, New Providence 
could have been made a mission station or a communal or socialistic soci- 
ety, made up of people coming hither on account of "distressed con- 
sciences." "Distress for conscience" was coming to be a contagious dis- 
ease at Salem, whence most of the early immigrants came. The health 
officers of the General Court of the bay enumerated various symptoms of 
"distress" as occasions for the "orders for departure from the colony," 



ROGER WILLIAMS AND THE NARRAGANSETTS 243 

among which were drunkenness, and various Hke disorders in the civil 
body. The diagnosis of some cases revealed a new epidemic styled Wil- 
liamsitis, located at Salem, in the Rev. Hugh Peter's Puritan church. Re- 
lief seems to have been found in total immersion in the salt waters of Mos- 
hassuck Cove. 

Roger Williams was not a covetous man. On the other hand, benevo- 
lence was his besetting and "upsettftig" sin. His son Daniel said of his 
father, "If a covetous man had that opportunity as he had, most of this 
town would have been his tenants." A great estate, forest laden, has un- 
expectedly come into his possession. Englishmen, in their English homes, 
knew only two classes of estates, individual and rental — the landlord and 
the tenant. They came to New England with English ideas and ideals. 
William Harris was a man of the English landlord type, the antipode of 
Roger Williams. 

Mr. Williams, with his generous idealism, almost amounting to crimi- 
nal license, with an inherent faith that all men and women were really 
good, unless proved to be criminally bad, did not know how best to ad- 
minister his estate and wrote to his "honored friend," "the most worship- 
ful" Governor of the bay for advice as to citizenship and propertyship in 
the new mission town at Moshassuck. We know what he wrote to Gov- 
ernor Winthrop, but we have no record of the Governor's reply, if he did 
reply. In his letter he proposed "a double subscription" for "a word of 
private advise," the first concerning "masters of families," the second 
concerning "those few young men, and any who shall hereafter (by your 
favourable connivance) desire to plant with us." This letter is an essen- 
tial bit of evidence in the story of the founding of Providence, to which 
most of it pertains. It may be found entire in volume vi. Pub. of The 
Narr.'\g.\nsett Club (first series), MDCCCLXXIV, John R. Bartlett, 
editor, pages 3, 4, 5, 6. We quote the body of the letter, which is without 
date, but, as the contents indicate, was subsequent to the memorandum of 
March 24, 1638 : 

The condition of myself and those few families here planting with 
me, you know full well ; we have no patent ; nor doth the face of magis- 
tracy suit with our present conditions. Hitherto, the masters of families 
have ordinarily met once a fortnight and consulted about our common 
peace, watch, and planting; and mutual consent have finished all matters 
with speed and peace. 

Now of late some young men, single persons (of whom we had much 
need ) being admitted to freedom of inhabitation, and promising to be sub- 
ject to the orders made by the consent of the householders, are discon- 
tented with their estate, and seek the freedom of vote also, and equal- 
ity, etc. 

Beside, our dangers (in the midst of these dens of lions) now espe- 
cially, call upon us to be compact in a civil way and power. 



244 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

I have therefore had thoughts of propounding to my neighbors a 
double subscription, concerning which I shall humbly crave your help. 

The first concerning ourselves, the masters of families ; thus, 

IVe, zi'liosc names are hereunder n'ritten, late inhabitants of the ^[as• 
sachusetts (upon occasion of some difference of conscience), being per- 
mitted to depart from the limits of that patent, under the which zi'c came 
over into these parts, and being cast by the Providence of the God of 
Heaven, remote from others of our countrymen amongst the barbarians 
in this town of New Providence, do with free and joint consent promise, 
each unto other, that, for our common peace and welfare (until we hear 
further of the King's royal pleasure concerning ourselves), we will, from 
time to time, subject ourselves in active or passive obedience to such orders 
and agreements as shall be made by the greater number of the present 
householders, and such as shall be hereafter admitted by their consent 
into the same privilege and covenant in our ordinary meeting. 

In witness whereof we hereunto subscribe. 

Concerning those few young men and any who shall hereafter (by 
your favorable connivance) desire to plant with us, this, — 

We whose names are hereunder written, being desirous to inhabit in 
this town of New Providence, do promise to subject ourselves in active or 
passive obedience to such orders and agreements as shall be made from 
time to time by the greater number of the present householders of this 
town, and such whom they shall admit into the same fellowship and privi- 
lege. 

In witness whereof, &c. 

Hitherto we choose one (named the officer) to call the meeting at 
the appointed time ; now it is desired by some of us that the householders 
by course perform that work, also gather votes and see the watch go on, &c. 

I have not mentioned these things to my neighbors, but shall as I see 
cause upon your loving counsel. 

As also since the place I have purchased, secondly, at my own charge 
and engagements, the inhabitants paying by consent thirty shillings apiece, 
they came, until my charge be out for their particular lots ; and thirdly, 
that I never made any other covenant with any person, but that if I got a 
place he should plant there with me ; my query is this, — 

Whether I may not lawfully desire this of my neighbors, that as I 
freely subject myself to common consent, and shall not bring in any per- 
son into the town without their consent ; so also that against my consent no 
person be violently brought in and received. 

I desire not to sleep in security and dream of a nest which no hand 
can reach. I cannot but expect changes, and the change of the last enemy 
death, yet dare I not despise a liberty, which the Lord seemeth to offer 
me, if for mine own or others peace; and therefore have I been thus bold 
to present my thoughts unto you. 

This letter is of great value, as it is the earliest account of the ideas 
and plan of Mr. Williams as to the property relations of the settlers and 
the establishment of civil government at New Providence. He claims the 
ideas as original with himself and that he had not communicated them to 
any one of his neighbors. It was not Mr. Williams' habit to ask advice, 
except of Governor Winthrop, of Massachusetts Bay Colony. 



ROGER WILLIAMS AND THE NARRAGANSETTS 245 

It is of much importance that we determine relatively the date of this 
letter before stating the exact plan of Mr. Williams in simple terms. It is 
clear that it was subsequent to the "Memorandum" transfer of March 24, 
1637-38. Mr. Williams states, "Since the place I have purchased * * * 
at my own charge and engagements." 

It is equally clear that the letter was written subsequent to the 
"Initial Deed," which was given October 8, 1638. Mr. Williams says, 
"The inhabitants paying by consent thirty shillings apiece as they came 
until my charge be out for their particular lots," referring to the pa>Tnent 
made to Mr. Williams by each of the twelve proprietors, to whom he 
sold. If these conclusions are correct, as they seem to be, Mr. Williams 
had sold the lands to a body of twelve men with no conditions as to the 
methods of administration of the property, as the deed will show: 

Initial deed of the lands conveyed by Roger Williams to 

TWELVE associate PROPRIETORS. 

Memorandum : That I, R. W., having formerly purchased of Canoni- 
cus and Miantonomi, this our situation or plantation of New Providence, 
viz., the two fresh rivers Wonas. and Moosh. and the grounds and 
meadows thereupon, in consideration of £30 received from the inhabitants 
of said place, do freely & fully pass, g^ant and make over, equal right & 
power of enjoying and disposing the same grounds & lands, unto my lov- 
ing friends and neighbors S W. W A. T J. R C. J G. I T. W H. W C. T O. 
F W. R W. and E H. and such others as the major part of us shall admit 
into the same fellowship of vote with us. As also I do freely make & 
pass over equal right & power of enjoying and disposing the said land and 
ground reaching from the aforesaid rivers unto the great river Pawtuxet 
with the grass and meadows thereupon, which was so lately given & 
granted by the two aforesaid sachems unto me. Witness my hand, R. W. 

This paper is not dated and is so singularly defective that one cannot 
understand how it could have passed from man to men, even in the most 
ignorant stages of society. We have adopted the spelling of our own time 
to make the paper more intelligible to readers. 

On the same day the same body of settlers made an agreement to 
divide the Williams estate into two parts, the larger section on the north 
to be called Providence Plantations, the smaller section, on the Pawtuxet 
river, to be called the Pawtuxet Purchase. Here is the agreement as to 
the Pawtuxet Purchase, which is self-explanatory: 

The eight(h) (day) of the eight(h) moneth in the vear, 16^8. (Octo- 
ber 8, 1638). 

It is agreed this day abovesaid that all the Meddow ground at Pa- 
tuxett, bounding upon the fresh River on both sides is to be impropriated 
unto those 13 persons being now Incorporated together in our Towne of 
Providence viz., Ezekiell Holliman, Francis Weston, Richard Waterman, 
Thomas Olney, Robert Coles, William Carpenter, William Harris, John 



246 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

Throckmorton, Roger Williams, John Greene, Thomas James, William 
Arnold, Stuckley Westcott, and to be equally divided among them, and 
every man to pay an equal proportion to raise up the sume of 20 £ for the 
same and if it shall come to passe that some or any one of these thirteene 
persons abovesaid, doe not pay or give sattisfaction of his or their equal 
proportions of the aforesaid sume of twentey poundes by this day eight 
weeks which will be the seventh day of loth moneth next ensueing that 
they or he shall leave theire or his proportion of meddow ground unto the 
rest of these 13 persons to be at their disposeing who shall make up the 
whole sume of twentye poundes which is to be paide unto Roger Williams. 
Memorandum, on the 3d of the loth m: 1638 (called) according to 
former agreement, I received of the neighbors abovesaid the full sume of 
i8£ : lis: 3d. Pr me Rogerum Williams. 

The Providence Plantations part of the Williams estate, by the joint 
act of the thirteen settlers, became a Proprietarv. the oldest form of 
corporate life, originating in New England. It existed for the purpose of 
holding, managing, selling and conveying lands and estates. A proprietary 
did not imply a civil compact, or a social organization. The members of 
a proprietary might live in other civil communities and far apart and had 
no rights, by reason of such proprietary interest, in the social or civil 
settlement which the proprietary might aid in establishing. Myles Stand- 
ish at Plymouth was a proprietor in the Sowams Proprietary, now Barring- 
ton, and owned a section of land at Nayatt Point, but had no rights or voice 
in the organization of the town, which embodied it. The local proprietors 
might later, at their will, organize town government, independent of pro- 
prietary rights in lands. The Providence Proprietary held the plantations 
as tenants in common. No one had an individual right, that was swallowed 
in the corporation, whose will was expressed by the major vote of the cor- 
porate proprietors. It is more than probable that Mr. Williams intended 
to establish a fiduciary corporation, by which the benefits accruing to the 
proprietary might be held for the use of later peoples. His generous char- 
acter would seem to indicate such a purpose. Mr. Dorr says: 

The question was left unsettled whether the new domain was to be the 
property of the whole society and of its political successors of the same 
fellowship of vote; the few original settlers receiving only small allot- 
ments of homesteads and farms, or whether they and their heirs were to 
be tenants in common of the whole purchase for their own private use. 

A great "Hubbub" arose over the settlement of this question, with 
Mr. Williams on the side of a permanent trust and the "loving neighbors" 
unanimously in favor of a division of the estate among the original set- 
tlers. William Harris was the leader of the Providence community and 
won out against Mr. Williams, thereby incurring a personal hostility which 
embittered the relations and lives of both to life's end. The same men 
whom Mr. Williams had chosen as future co-proprietors of Providence 



ROGER WILLIAMS AND THE NARRAGANSETTS 247 

Plantations, in which he probably intended to include the whole of the 
sachems' gift, clamored for freehold estates. Between March 24, 1638, 
and October 8 of the same year, the hot atmosphere of summer time was 
made ten fold hotter by the torrid debate that was carried on in the initial 
struggle of the founder with the men he had invited or allowed to become 
his companions in exile. It is probable that the letter to Governor Win- 
throp, asking his private advice, was written by Mr. Williams in this period 
of mental distress, prior to October 8, 1638. 

The outcome of the fight, through which "Pawtuxet was allowed 
(only for peace's sake) to the first twelve" is best stated by Mr. Williams: 

Pawtuxet I parted with at a small addition to Providence (for then 
that monstrous bound or business of upstream without limits, was not 
thought of). Wm. Harris and the first twelve of Providence were restless 
for Pawtuxet and I parted with it upon the same terms, viz., for the sup- 
ply of the destitute ( ;) * * * When these 12 men (out of pretence 
of Conscience & my desire of Peace) had gotten the power out of my 
hands, yet they still yielded to my grand desire of propagating a public 
interest, and confessed themselves as feolifees, for all the many scores, 
who were received afterwards paid the 30 £ — not to the purchasers as 
proprietors, but as feoffees for a Town stock. 

By the two papers signed by Roger Williams, October 8, 1638, the 
memorandum and the agreement, two estates were created, a proprietary 
and a freehold, and the twelve associates were, on the same day and at the 
same session, made proprietors of Providence Plantations and freeholders 
of the Pawtuxet Purchase. As proprietors they became the owners in 
fee of a home lot of about five acres at Moshassuck and outlands of one 
hundred acres apiece. As freeholders, each became the owner in fee 
simple of one-thirteenth of the Pawtuxet Purchase, the consideration 
accruing to Mr. Williams was thirty pounds for the plantations and 
twenty pounds for Pawtuxet. In 1654 Mr. Williams, in a letter to the 
town of Providence, thus refers to the two sales of that memorable Octo- 
ber day: 

I have been charged with folly for that freedom and liberty which I 
have always stood for ; I say liberty and equality in land and government. 
I have been blamed for parting with Mooshawsick, and afterwards Paw- 
tuxet (which were mine own, as truly as any man's coat upon his back) 
without reserving to myself a foot of land, or an inch of voice in any 
matter, more than to my servants and strangers. 

Mr. Williams' son Daniel, in a letter to the town of Providence in 
1710, wrote: 

It is evident that this Township was my Father's and it is held in his 
name against all unjust claimers, &c. Can you find such another now alive 
or in this age; he gave away his lands and other estate to them that he 



248 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

thought was most in want until he gave away all, so that hee had nothing 
to help himselfe, so that he being not in a way to get for his supply and 
being anchant (old) it must needs pinch hard somewhere. 

P. S.— If a covetios man had that opportunity as he had, most of this 
town would have bene his tenents I believe. 

The Pawtuxet Purchase included the fine natural meadows on the 
Pawtuxet river, extending to and possibly beyond the mouth and lower 
valley of the Pocasset. William Arnold and family had settled at Paw- 
tuxet Falls, on the north bank of the stream, and William Harris had 
located in the Pocasset \'alley. It also included arable lands, probably 
Indian clearings or cornfields, for a considerable distance north of the 
river. The northern bounds are clearly defined as Sassafrax Coxe, Fields 
Point and Hipses Rock, between Xeutakonkanut Hill and the Pocasset 
river. An intermediary bound is given by "an oak tree standing near 
unto the cornfield" at the Indian town of Mashapaug. This town was 
located wdu-re Auburn now stands, although it is possible that the town 
of Mashapaug extended north to the big pond of the same name. If 
Mashapaug pond is taken as the central bound the north line of the 
Pawtuxet Purchase would be nearly straight from east to west, otherwise 
an angle would be formed by the detour south to Auburn. However, the 
line was never run out. The area was about six square miles, or 3,840 
acres, which, divided equally with the thirteen purchasers, gave each about 
three hundred acres — not a large estate for the early days. To each of the 
thirteen may be added a proprietor's right in the Providence Proprietary. 
We have reached the point to recall the "Memorandum" No. 2, 
which appears as a supplement to No. i, "The Sachems' Deed." This 
writing claims to be a confirmation by Miantonomi of all that had pre- 
ceded and adds "up the streams of Pawtucket and Paz^iuxet without 
limits, wc might have for the use of our cattle." This postscript was 
signed by Roger Williams and Benedict Arnold, but not by the sachem. 
It bears the date of the 9th day of May, 1639, but the year was not on 
the original paper, which was written by Thomas James, "a Man of Learn- 
ing and Wisdom," "once Pastor of the Church at Charlestown." 

This "Memorandum" opened a controversy, instituted legal battles 
and aroused personal hatreds that long survived in families, even after 
the original actors had passed away and the events had become ancient 
history. The issue was over the intent of the writing — did it convey a 
new and incorporeal privilege, subject to withdrawal, or was it simply an 
explanatory codicil, making clearer the imperfect outlines of the original 
"deed?" William Harris was the leader of the party who steadfastly 
maintained that it was given to strengthen and confirm all that had gone 
before, while Mr. Williams, with his usually em])hatic language, took the 
ground that no new rights in lands were given and that the Pocasset river 
was the western bound of the Sachems' gift. 



CHAPTER XIV 



BOSTON THE PREPARATORY SCHOOL 



CHAPTER XIV. 
BOSTON THE PREPARATORY SCHOOL. 

The peculiar circumstances and events that preceded and attended 
the founding of the Colony of Rhode Island, on Aquidneck, are singular 
in nature and of fascinating interest. As the story will show, the whole 
body of people who were the original settlers on Rhode Island migrated 
from England to make homes in the Bay Colony. Most of them, perhaps 
all, had no thought of establishing a new settlement outside the Bay, and 
made Boston their home, by purchasing land, owning farms, building 
houses, becoming freemen, engaging in business and taking an active part 
in all industries incident to founding a new seaport town, — the metropolis 
of the colonial life and business of New England. For eight years, the 
future Rhode Island colonists were engaged, mind and soul, in all the 
interests and industries and activities of this new town. They were 
leaders in Church and State, — founders of Boston and the Bay Colony, 
in the largest and truest sense. 

In March, 1638, a strange event occurred, — the most marvellous and 
the most momentous in the early history of the Bay Colony. It was no 
less than the expulsion of a large group of the most intelligent, the most 
influential, the wealthiest citizens, freemen, officeholders, church and soci- 
ety workers of Boston. More than sixty families. — over 300 souls, — own- 
ing lands and houses in Boston, conducting important businesses, and re- 
lated by many strong ties to all the affairs of the town and Colony, were 
driven in the wintry season to depart from the town they had helped to 
found, into a cruel e.xile, — whither,^ — only a wise and overruling Provi- 
dence could know or determine. A cruel fate attended the expulsion of 
the Huguenots from France, — cruel alike to both parties. Volumes have 
been written on the forced exile of the Pilgrims from Lincolnshire to 
Leyden. The banishment of Roger Williams from Massachusetts has 
been the ground of debate of thousands of apologists and Puritan defend- 
ers. The poet Longfellow, in "Evangeline," has given a limited immor- 
tality to the forcible transfers of the Acadian Colony to a Southern clime. 
From Boston to Aquidneck was a shorter journey, with a most successful 
conclusion for Democracy and Soul Liberty. This chapter reveals the 
story in part, illustrating the Old World Dream, translated into a New 
World Realism. A Colony of loyal men and women were banished. A 
new state arose, dedicated to Civil and Religious Liberty, named Rhode 
Island. 

Liberty of person, of estates, and of all just rights, has always been 
a strong passion of the Anglo-Saxon race and mind. The wresting of the 



252 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

rights and liberties of an English subject from the hands of King John, 
in Magna Charter, was a part only of a series of concessions of royal 
prerogatives, secured by the demands of the common people. The coloni- 
zation of North America, in the seventeenth century, found its source and 
inspiration in the love of and the demand for a larger measure of civil 
and religious freedom than was then possessed by the English people. The 
great middle class of Britain had absorbed the doctrines of the Reforma- 
tion and their minds had become thoroughly saturated with the teachings 
and idealism of the Old and New Testament Scriptures, including the 
freedom moving events of the Apocrypha, then an integral part of the 
Protestant Bible. Slowly, with the introduction of parts or the whole of 
the newly published Bible, the homes of the English people became schools 
of religious study, and often of theological debate. The history and doc- 
trines of the Bible were matters of daily conversation in the homes, on the 
streets, in the market places, and in political and social circles. Large 
portions of the Bible were committed to memory. A divine infallible book 
was worth more than fallible priests and human literature. The voice of 
God was an authority far superior to the orders of the Bishop or the 
canons of the church. The Hebrew invasion of England not only gave 
new life to liberty loving people of the British Isles, but inspired a new 
literature, and to ardent minds, instinct with reform, it suggested new 
ideals in leadership and new fields for operation, as Canaan was the out- 
come of Egyptian bondage. The new love for the Old Testament nomen- 
clature led parents to reject Pagan or royal names for the Hebrew. The 
Enoflish records are flooded with Old Testament names from Adam and 
Eve, through Noah, Methusaleh, Moses and Aaron, to Kerenhappuch and 
Mahershalalalhashbaz. Moses, David, Isaiah, Jesus and Paul, were 
familiar characters of daily study. Hume says, "Cromwell hath beat up 
his drums clean through the Old Testament — you may learn the genealogy 
of our Saviour by the names in his regiment. The muster-master uses no 
other list than the first chapter of Matthew." 

It is no wonder then that civil freedom became the waking dream of 
common English folks, and that freedom in thought and worship, as 
revealed in the Old Testament, in the Hebrew Commonwealth and in the 
New Testament, and in the sublime democracy of Jesus, should become 
the two most powerful and far-reaching forces that entered into sixteenth 
century English thought and life. From the opened Bible, were the new 
ideas as to religion and government. John Milton was a most faithful 
interpreter of the Puritan conception of the new revelation, reviving in 
enduring historic verse, the visions of Dante and the literalism of the 
Church Fathers. As an inspired book, every page, every line, every word 
of the Bible was inspired and received a literal interpretation. An eternal 
Heaven with its blessedness had its anticlimax in an eternal Hell with its 



BOSTON THE PREPARATORY SCHOOL 253 

awfulness. The daily contemplation of religious themes and eternal issues 
gave to the Puritans a sober, an austere, almost a tragic character. Every 
event of life was by the Divine will and foreknowledge. "The chief end 
of man was to glorify God and to enjoy him forever." Macaulay says, 
"The Puritan was made up of two different men. The one all self-abase- 
ment, penitence, gratitude, passion ; the other proud, calm, inflexible, 
sagacious. He prostrated himself in the dust before his Maker ; but he 
set his foot on the neck of his king." In his great eulogium, the great 
Englishman calls the Puritans the most remarkable body of men which 
the world has ever produced. And these were Bible-made men. 

The Hebrew Commonwealth became the study of the Puritan leaders. 
God was its law-giver, its governor, its judge. What noblier idealism 
can be conceived for a state than to have the Supreme Ruler of the Uni- 
verse as its founder. His laws as their rule of action, His guidance as a 
Providential director and governor. His benediction as final judge. To 
the individual or collective Puritan, in England, or America, God's pres- 
ence was real, not a fiction, and his overruling power translated trials into 
blessings, and made the rough and crooked paths of life seem smooth and 
straight. 

Mr. Williams named his first resting place, Providence, as Jacob had 
ages before called his Peniel, and as late as 1842, the Puritan spirit still 
inhered in the statesmen of Rhode Island, in the making of the State Con- 
stitution, under which we now live. The preamble reads : "We, the peo- 
ple of the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, grateful to 
Almighty God for the civil and religious liberty which he hath so long per- 
mitted us to enjoy, and looking to Him for a blessing upon our endeavor 
to secure and transmit the same unimpaired to succeeding generations, 
do ordain and establish this Constitution of government :" i. In truth, the 
Hebrew concept of a Divine Governor, which inspired Williams and 
Clarke as Puritan leaders, still lives. 

Possession of a people, newly-born into the life of the Spirit of Lib- 
erty, Democracy was coming to be esteemed a divine right of the Com- 
mons, as Monarchy had been and was then regarded by the Aristocracy as 
the divine right of the King; the right of the people to choose their own 
rulers and make their own laws was only harking back to the days of 
the Witenagemot when manhood was sovereignty. Then Britons did not 
need to study the Democracy of the Greek Agora and of the Roman 
Forum, for their own fathers had practiced in the arts of freemen in the 
forests of Germany and on the shores of the North Sea in ages past. As 
to soul-liberty, the most sacred and universal of natural human rights, 
every sword of persecution drawn, and every fagot lighted at the stake, 
was the harsh act of tyranny against the essential, the eternal truth, that 
the soul of man must ever be free to choose, love and worship. 



254 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

England of the seventeenth century was a Church-State, as is Eng- 
land of the twentieth. The new birth of a great body of the people to the 
ideas of a broader civil freedom and church independency, inaugurated the 
Pilgrim church, the exile in Holland, and the settlement of the Plymouth 
(Mass.) Colony in 1620. Another body of Englishmen, agreeing in large 
measure with the Pilgrims as to a Democratic State, but still adhering to 
the traditional Church-State idea, organized another colonial plan, under 
the title of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in America. These people were 
styled Puritans and were as bitterly hated by the Church-State of England 
as were the Pilgrims. 

John Fiske says of the Puritans : "Their principal reason for com- 
ing to New England was their dissatisfaction with the way in which 
affairs were managed in the old country. They wished to bring about a 
reform in the Church in such wise that the members of a congregation 
should have more voice than formerly in the church government, and that 
the minister of each congregation should be more independent than for- 
merly of the bishop and civil government. * * * Finding the resist- 
ance to their reforms quite formidable in England, and having some rea- 
son to fear that they might themselves be crushed in the struggle, they 
crossed the ocean in order to carry out their ideas in a new and remote 
land, where they might be comparatively secure from interference." 

The Puritan State came into being in New England, when Governor 
John Winthrop, leading an English colony of 800 settlers, landed at Naum- 
keag, now Salem, Mass., in June, 1630. On that date, Plymouth Colony 
had 300 settlers, and Winthrop found 300 at Salem who had settled at 
that port since 1628. In 1630 the total colonial population of New Eng- 
land did not exceed 1,400. The keynote of the Puritan enterprise is found 
in a noble and tender farewell letter of Gov. John Winthrop and his 
official associates, "to the rest of their brethren in and of the Church of 
England," written on the ship Arbella, at Yarmouth. April 7, 1630. That 
they were not Scl^aratists as were the Plymouth colonists, is expressed in 
the sentence, "Who esteem it our honor to call the Church of England, 
from whence we arise, our dear mother ; and cannot part from our native 
country, where she specially resideth, without much sadness of heart and 
many tears in our eyes, ever acknowledging that such hope and part as we 
have obtained in the common salvation we have received in her bosom, and 
sucked it from her breasts." Among the names of signers of this letter of 
loyalty to the English Church-State appears the name of William Codding- 
ton, who, later, figures so large in the history of the Colony of Rhode 
Island. 

The same sentiment towards the English Church and State was ex- 
pressed by Rev. Francis Higginson, who came to Salem in 1628, with the 
Endicott colonists: "We will not say, as the Separatists were wont to 



BOSTON THE PREPARATORY SCHOOL 255 

say at their leaving of England, 'Farewell Babylon, farewell Rome,' but we 
will say 'farewell dear England,' farewell the Church of God in England, 
and all the Christian friends there. * * * We go to practice the posi- 
tive part of Church reformation, and to propagate the Gospel in America." 
All the founders of the colonies of Providence Plantations and of Rhode 
Island were originally residents in and in most cases freemen of the 
Massachusetts Bay Colony. As the founding of both the Colonies on 
Narragansett Bay was due to sharp differences between these founders 
and the policy and government of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, it seems 
wise to state at the outset the principles and policy of the Puritan State 
of the Bay. 

The Massachusetts Company was an organized government, whose 
field of operations and colonial powers were clearly defined by the royal 
Patent granted by Charles I., under date of March 4th, 1628-9. Corpora- 
tion meetings were held, officers elected and various business transacted in 
England. The chief officers were a Governor, a Deputy Governor, a 
Treasurer and eighteen Assistants, to be elected from time to time by the 
major vote of the freemen of the company. Matthew Craddock was the 
first Governor. The above named officers constituted The General 
Court, which usually met, while in England, at the House of the Deputy 
Governor. The General Court legislated for the company and could by 
major vote enlarge the body of freemen. At one of the meetings held in 
England it was voted to elect two clergymen as freemen in order that 
their prayer might "sanctifye" their proceedings, as the end of their mis- 
sion was "chiefly the glory of God." The settlement at Salem, under 
John Endicott and Rev. Francis Higginson, in 1628, was made by the 
Company of the Massachusetts Bay. Before the departure of the Com- 
pany for New England, John Winthrop was elected Governor and Wil- 
liam Coddington an Assistant. 

In 1630, the whole Bay Company was transplanted bodily from Eng- 
land to Salem. As Mr. Lodge has said, "It was the migration of a peo- 
ple, not the mere setting forth of colonists or adventurers." Most of the 
families were wealthy ; many held high social rank ; all were well edu- 
cated for their time ; most were members of the Church of England, from 
which it was a sore trial for them to separate themselves. These people, 
nicknamed Puritans at home, crossed the sea for four chief reasons: 

First — To establish homes and a new social order in New England. 

Second — To establish a reformed State-Oiurch. 

Third — To establish a reformed Church-State. 

Fourth — To carry the Christian faith into foreign parts to save a 
Pagan people. 

It is easy to see that a choice body of men and women were de- 
manded for such an enterprise, involving as it did the reform of Anglo- 



256 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

American society throughout. It certainly required the sifting of king- 
doms to find the seed for such planting. The Bay Company owned all 
the lands within its Patent by royal consent. The Indian rights of occu- 
pancy, as tenants at will, were dissolved by agreement or purchase. The 
qualification of a freeman was based on church membership. Property 
rights and civil government were thus in the absolute control of the Bay 
Colonists. Two sources of danger were constant. One was the inter- 
ference of the Crown with the vested rights of the Colony. The second 
was the incoming and intrusion of men and women whose acts and influ- 
ence seemed subversive of the policy of the Puritan Commonwealth. As 
self-preservation is the first law of states as well as of individuals, we 
must exercise large consideration and great charity for a people setting up 
a new government in the wilderness, as well as for those who, differing 
from them in matters of opinion or practice, entered reasonable protests 
against their public policy and accepted separation and exile in preference 
to conformity to Puritanism, as interpreted by Wilson, Winthrop and 
Endicott. The Puritan ship of state was outward bound, on voyage on 
new and uncharted seas. Her officers and crew were inexperienced in 
sea-craft ; strange would it have been, had not her passengers, in narrow 
straits and in threatening storms, advised and urged new courses with 
furling of sails. Stranger still, if in the peril of the hour, the officers had 
not in sheer desperation, set on shore, in desert places, the leaders in 
incipient mutiny. The figure suggests what is to follow: 

Between 1630 and 1638, the Bay Colony, with its chief seat at Boston, 
had more than double its population. Boston furnished an excellent har- 
bor for the passenger-bearing vessels. Among the arrivals w^e find the 
names of the following persons who shared in founding the two Rhode 
Island Colonies: William Coddington, Roger Williams, William Harris, 
William and Benedict Arnold, William and Anne Hutchinson, William 
Baulston, Samuel Wilbour, Henry Bull, Randall Holden, John Clarke, 
Samuel Gorton. John Coggeshall, Edward Hutchinson, John Sanford, 
William and Mary Dyer, William Aspinwall. John Porter, Philip Sher- 
man, William Brenton. Robert Harding, Nicholas Easton, Thomas Sav- 
age and others. 

Concerning Rev. William Blackstone, a dweller at Boston, who invited 
Gov. Winthrop and his fellows to settle on the Peninsula, and who in 
1634 became the first permanent white settler on Providence Plantations, 
we have already written. To Mr. Williams and the reasons for his exile 
another chapter will be devoted. In this chapter, we propose to show 
what Boston and the Bay Colony did in preparing Clarke, Coddington, 
the Hutchinsons, Bull and others for founding the Colony of Rhode 
Island on Aquidneck. 



BOSTON THE PREPARATORY SCHOOL 257 

In order to participate in affairs civil or ecclesiastical in the Puritan 
Colony, it was necessary to become a freeman, by joining the colonial 
church, which was organized at Cambridge, Mass., August, 1630. This 
State-Church was not the English church of ordinances, ceremonials and 
vestments, presided over by a priesthood appointed by bishops and directed 
by canons and synods. It was a simple, democratic institution, adopting' 
its own covenant and articles of faith and electing its own clergy by a 
major vote of the membership. The order was called Congregationalism, 
— a cult contemporaneous with Episcopacy and F'resbyterianism. Each 
church was an independent organism, recognizing Jesus Christ as its only 
leader and acknowledged governor. In such a church, free from most of 
the forms of the Episcopal Church of England, the membership came into 
the practical exercise of individual rights, in affairs spiritual. This was 
a school of freedom and equality. 

So far as can be ascertained all the adult members of the Rhode 
Island Colony were, at the time of their separation from the Bay Colony, 
members of some one of the Puritan churches of the Bay Colony, — most 
were in good standing in the Boston church, of which Rev. John Wilson 
and Rev. John Cotton were pastors. 

As freemen, the males were invested with the right of voting for all 
civil officers and affairs and of holding any civil office. All civil officers 
were elected at stated times by the major vote of the freemen. The 
annual town meeting was the occasion for the freeman to exercise the 
new privilege of choosing his rulers in town and Colony, and in making 
the laws which should be observed in both. Here, at Boston, in the first 
school of freemen, the founders of Aquidneck learned and practiced their 
first lessons in democratic government, .-^s members of the First Church, it 
may be safely assumed that they were a people of godly walk and conver- 
sation, — not mischief makers, nor disturbers of the peace of the town. 
That they intended to make the Bay Colony their permanent home is evi- 
dent from the facts of land ownership, erection of comfortable houses, 
businesses engaged in, clearing the lands for gardens and farms, etc., etc. 
While the freemen were thus engaged, their wives and daughters set the 
standards of economy and social and intellectual life. We may believe 
that popular amusements were few and that the household duties of house- 
wives in a new town in the wilds were most laborious and engrossing, yet 
we may imagine that afternoon teas and quiltings did afford privileges 
of social acquaintance and true fellowship quite as substantial and soul- 
satisfying as the more elaborate, costly and fashionable modes of social 
intercourse of the twentieth century, in the metropolis of New England. 
These old-time Boston men and women of 1630-318 had their hands full of 
hard work, their minds full of new thoughts and contrivings, and their 

R 1—17 



258 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

hearts full of human interest and achievement. This school of free 
thought and action, on the shores of Massachusetts Bay, was a grand 
preparation through experience, hardship, discipline, courage, faith, for 
later and more vigorous duties and responsibilities awaiting them below 
the horizon of their daily vision and expectation, in a new field of action, 
in Narragansett Bay. 

The founding of a well ordered seaport town, like Boston,— the port 
of entry and exit of all the commerce of that day, was a matter of no 
small importance, and our future founders of Newport and Portsmouth 
had their experience there in shaping municipal affairs. In the first board 
of ten selectmen of Boston, we find the names of William Coddington, 
John Coggeshall and William Brenton. In 1636, the names of William 
Hutchinson. John Coggeshall, John Sanford, William Aspinwall, William 
Brenton and William Balston appear as fathers of the town, one-half of 
the board. In 1637, the future settlers at Aquidneck had a majority of 
one in the town government. This was the last year of their residence in 
Boston. 

In the higher and more responsible oflSces of the Bay Colony our 
future founders of Rhode Island bore a conspicuous and honorable part. 
Of the General Court, the legislative body of the Colony, William Cod- 
dington was a member from 1630 to 1638. As an Assistant to the Gov- 
ernor, he was elected by the freemen in 1629, 1630, 1632 to i'638. He 
filled the office of Colonial Treasurer for three years, 1634-5 and 6. In 
1636, Mr. Coddington was chosen a judge to preside over courts in Bos- 
ton, Dorchester, Weymouth and Hingham. In 1635, Mr. Coddington 
was chosen a member of the Committee on Military .A.fFairs, with the Gov- 
ernor. Deputy Governor, John Winthrop, John Endicott and other chief 
citizens of the colony. He was also on a committee with Gov. Winthrop 
to fix the conditions of settlement at Andover. In 1637, he was chosen 
one of a committee of five to adjust matters relative to the soldiers sent 
to Block Island. Thus Mr. Coddington was a public officer in the Colony 
for more than eight years, filling the most responsible offices, by the choice 
of the people and the General Court. He was also a merchant and built 
the first brick house in the town of Boston. 

William Brenton. a cofounder of Boston and .A.quidneck, was chosen 
to superintend the building of a House of Correction in Boston, in 1634, 
the year he was made a freeman. He was a selectman of Boston in 1634- 
5-6-7. In 1635, he was appointed on a committee to consider what action 
should be taken with John Endicott of Salem in defacing the English flag 
by cutting out the cross. The same year he was appointed to furnish "at 
the public charge" all that was needed at the prison in Boston. He was 
elected a Deputy from Boston to the General Court in 1635-6-7. 



BOSTON THE PREPARATORY SCHOOL 259 

John Coggeshall was a silk merchant of Boston. He was made a 
freeman Nov. 6, 1632 ; was elected a deacon of the First Church in 1634, 
holding the office until his removal to Aquidneck. In 1634 and 1636, he 
was a Boston selectman, and in 1634-5-6-7, a Deputy from Boston in the 
General Court. In 1634, he gave £5 towards the seafort, was chosen 
overseer of public ammunition, and in 1635 was chosen Commissioner of 
Commerce for Boston, and was elected as a tax assessor for the Colony. 

William and Anne Hutchinson arrived in Boston in 1634, joining the 
First Church with four children, — Richard, Francis, Faith and Bridget, — 
the same year. Two sons, Edward and Elisha, and possibly a third, 
George, were already at Boston, on the arrival of their parents. William 
Hutchinson had a grant, not long after his arrival, of the site now known 
as the "Old Corner Bookstore," which then extended from Washington 
street, on the north side of School, to the City Hall lot. Governor 
Thomas Hutchinson of the Bay Colony was the great-grandson of Wil- 
liam and Anne Hutchinson, through son Elisha and grandson Thomas. 
Major Thomas, founder of the Savage family in America, representative, 
speaker and assistant, noted as a staunch soldier and Indian fighter, mar- 
ried Faith Hutchinson, from whom came James Savage, the great annalist 
of New England Genealogy. 

William Hutchinson was elected twice as a selectman of Boston, 
served two years as a Deputy from Boston in the General Court, and with 
William Coddington was a Judge in the County Court. Both, besides 
their Boston property, had large farms at Mt. Wollaston. Mrs. Anne 
Hutchinson acted as physician, advisor and midwife to Boston mothers. 

Many other names of Aquidneck founders are found among the 
recorded lists of church members, freemen, officeholders and business 
men of Boston. The evidence is conclusive that these men and their 
associates obtained valuable training and experience in the Boston school 
for freemen, which fitted them to become the founders of a new common- 
wealth. 

Another factor of great value in a new civil life is the family tie and 
relations. At Boston, acquaintances were made, as they nowhere else 
can be, in a new society in the wilderness. Pioneer life makes strong and 
abiding friendships. Common hardships and joys are chains of steel, 
which never break. Large families also have a strong binding power, 
uniting whole communities in numberless ways. 

William Coddington had thirteen children ; William Hutchinson, 
seven ; Joseph Qark, brother of Dr. John Clark, ten ; Robert Carr, six ; 
Richard Borden, ten ; Caleb Carr, eleven ; John Coggeshall, eleven ; John 
Briggs, six; John Crandell, nine; John Cranston, ten; George Gardiner, 
fourteen ; William Harris, thirteen ; Randall Holden, eleven ; William 
Brenton, eight. Boston men and women were certainly making wise pro- 



26o • HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

vision for an unforeseen venture, — a new plantation. Race suicide was 
not a crime of the foremothers. 

Much more could be written of the important services, individual and 
collective, of the Aquidneck settlers in the founding of Boston, during 
the first eight years of the development of social order, civil government 
and a church of the Puritan faith. It must be clear to all that they shared 
the highest honors and posts of service of the town and colony with Win- 
throp, Endicott, Bradstreet, Bellingham, Dudley and Saltenstall. Their 
experiences in all the various offices and functions gave them the exercise 
of their varied talents in civil and ecclesiastical concerns, and to judge of 
the excellency and defects in organization and administration. The les- 
sons thus learned in their practical daily life were inwrought in their civic 
thought and consciousness, and became their guide in the establishment 
of a new state. "Magistracy" under law was the keynote in the structure 
of the English State. It held the same vital position in the Puritan Com- 
monwealth of the Bay and later in the new Colony soon to be planted in 
the midst of Narragansett Bay. Historian Arnold says : "Their plans 
were more matured at the outset than those of the Providence settlers. 
To establish a Colony independent of every other was their avowed inten- 
tion, and the organization of a regular government was their initial step." 

Few events in New England history are so sublimely trying as the 
rending of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1638, when more than sixty 
families. — and more than 300 persons — composing a Colony three times the 
size of the Pilgrim Colony at Plymouth, in 1620, were "dismissed" and 
summarily sent forth into cruel exile, in the midst of wintry weather, on 
stormy seas, to find a hitherto unknown harbor of shelter among savage 
beasts and savage men. Let us direct our thoughts to the issue, fraught 
with such tremendous and far-reaching results to both parties. 

The first four years of Boston history — 1630-1634 — was a period 
of social and civic acquaintance and adjustment. Protection from local 
perils and the safeguarding of colonial rights of franchise, made social, 
political and even religious unity an absolute necessity. A hostile home 
government in England might at any moment, and without just cause, put 
an end to local government and make the political life of Boston people 
more burdensome than it had been the land of their birth, while a hostile 
Indian raid might at any moment, by torch and tomahawk wipe out the 
infant Colony. In union alone was safety. 

The next four years — ^1634-16138 — constitute an era of differentiation 
and separation, singularly enough, along lines of the most abstruse reli- 
gious thought and denominational cleavage, involving under the hard and 
obscure title, the Antinomian Controversy, the most vital elements of civil 
and social liberty. By reason of it, Boston became the storm-center of 
New England, not only of sharp debate, but of deep-seated and violent 



BOSTON THE PREPARATORY SCHOOL 261 

hatred, causing divisions of families and social circles, business estrange- 
ments, political animosities, church excommunications and colonial ban- 
ishments. 

Concerning this remarkable mental and spiritual phenomenon, which 
stirred the whole New England pioneer life to its deepest depths, Mr. 
Charles Francis Adams, late president of the Massachusetts Historical 
Society, writes as follows : "In its essence, that controversy ( Antinomian) 
was a great deal more than a religious dispute ; it was the first of the many 
New England quickenings in the direction of social, intellectual and politi- 
cal developments, — New England's earliest protest against formulas. * 
* * It was designed by no one. No one at the time realized its signifi- 
cance. It was to that community just what the first questioning of an 
active mind is to a child brought up in the strictest observance of purely 
conventional forms. * * * They represented the ideas of extreme 
civil liberty and religious toleration. * * * The issue between reli- 
gious toleration and a compelled theological conformity, was, as a matter 
of established policy, then to be decided. It was, and the decision lasted 
through five generations. * * * For good or evil, it committed Mas- 
sachusetts to a policy of strict religious conformity. * * * The domi- 
nation of 1637 was not disturbed or seriously shaken until the era of the 
Unitarian movement under Channing, in 1810." 

Anne Hutchinson was the leading spirit in this strife of tongues, and 
this home of Anne and William Hutchinson, occupying the site of "The 
Old Corner Book Store," Boston, was the place and scene of the most 
ardent discussions that ever exercised the minds, influenced the judgments 
and determined the acts of the whole body of the young metropolis. 

The Hutchinson family left Boston, Old England, in July, and landed 
in Boston, New England, in the autumn of 1634. William Hutchinson, a 
man of good blood and a fair estate, was grandson of John Hutchinson, a 
former Lord-Mayor of the city of Lincoln, England. Anne, his wife, was 
the daughter of Rev. Francis and Bridget (Dryden) Marbury, of London. 
The mother, Bridget, was sister of Sir Erasmus Dryden, Baronet, grand- 
father of the poet Dryden. Her sister, Catharine Marbury, was the wife 
of Mr. Richard Scott, who settled at Providence. 

The Rev. John Cotton, pastor of St. Botolph's Church in Boston, 
the favorite minister and teacher of the Hutchinsons, had removed to 
Boston, New England, in 1633, and had become the associate minister to 
Rev. John Wilson, pastor of the First Church of the Bay. Mr. Cotton's 
liberal teachings in the home church had endeared their relations, and his 
personality was a strong magnet to draw the Hutchinsons to Boston, the 
following year. 

The Hutchinsons, parents and children, at once joined the Puritan 
Church of Boston, and entered heartily into all the active life of the new 



262 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

town. Mrs. Hutchinson, a woman of fine social qualities and the mother 
of a large brood of children, soon became an influential factor in society, 
and as nurse, physician and midwife, a benefactor and friend to all the 
families in Boston. 

Governor Winthrop calls Mrs. Hutchinson a woman "of a ready wit 
and bold spirit," and her husband, "a man of very mild temper and weak 
parts, and wholly guided by his wife." Rev. Thomas Weld, the most bit- 
ter enemy of both, tells us that the wife was "a woman of a haughty and 
fierce carriage, of a nimble wit and active spirit, and a ver>- voluble tongue, 
more bold than a man, though in judgment and understanding inferior to 
many women." 

It is more than probable that Mr. Weld's opinion was shaped some- 
what by the lashings of Mrs. Hutchinson's voluble tongue. 

The historian Palfrey speaks of Mrs. Hutchinson as "a capable and 
resolute woman," and "a kind and serviceable neighbor, especially to per- 
sons of her own sex in times of sickness ; and by these qualities united 
with her energy of character and vivacity of mind, she acquired esteem 
and influence." Gov. Arnold calls her "a woman of great intellectual 
endowments and of masculine energy, to whom even her enemies ascribed 
unusual powers, styling her 'the masterpiece of woman's wit,' and de- 
scribing her as 'a gentlewoman of an haughty carriage, a busy spirit, com- 
petent wit and a voluble tongue,' who, by a remarkable union of charity, 
devotion and ability, soon became the leader, not only of her own sex, but 
of a powerful party in the state and church, so that her opponents have 
termed her by a species of anagrammatic wit "the Nonesuch,' was 
Mrs. Anne Hutchinson, the founder and champion of the Antinomian 
'heresy'." 

Equally complimentary are the opinions of Bancroft, Adams and Dr. 
Ellis. Bancroft calls her "a woman of such admirable understanding, 
that her enemies could never speak of her without acknowledging her 
eloquence and ability." Mr. Adams says she possessed "a strong religious 
instinct, and a remarkably well-developed controversial talent, wonder- 
fully endowed with the indescribable quality known as magnetism." Dr. 
Ellis estimates her as "a pure and excellent woman, to whose person and 
conduct there attaches no stain * * * of a high spirit, and gifted in 
argument and speech." 

Here, evidently, is a woman of vision, of power, of passion, of mental 
vigor and clearness, and of moral and spiritual convictions. She is strong 
enough in her own right to set at naught the traditions of men as to a 
woman's sphere in the church and in the civil society, who opens her 
house once and often twice a week for a meeting of Boston women to 
discuss the live questions of church and state. She goes even further and 
invites the men of Boston to sit with the women, in this first open Forum 



BOSTON THE PREPARATORY SCHOOL 263 

in America, or of its kind in the world, to discuss the topics of supreme 
moment, as seen in that early day. It is not a school of tattlers or scandal- 
mongers, but of serious Puritans, debating serious concerns, and a most 
serious and high-souled woman presides and sets the keynote for the think- 
ing body of town folks, who crowd her "large and commodious home." 
Mrs. Hutchinson had won her way into the hearts of Boston society by 
her sympathetic and helpful services as midwife to young mothers and a 
domestic physician and nurse to the sick of both sexes. Boston society 
responds (|uick!y to her invitations to her house and hospitality. But 
readiest of all, Boston lends a quick ear to her discussion of magistrates 
and town government, to her views of household economics and child 
training, and most earnestly to her views of religious doctrines and dis- 
cipline as taught and administered by Rev. John Wilson and Rev. John 
Cotton, the ministers of the First Church. 

In matters of religion and theology, Anne Hutchinson was a seer, a 
prophetess, "a Daniel, come to judgment." Three great spiritual concepts 
possessed her. She believed that the human soul could and did hold close 
communion with the Divine Over-Soul. She believed in direct, special 
revelations from the Divine to the human — from God to her own soul, 
.'^he also believed in a spiritual justification of the soul of man, with God, 
through Faith. She clearly and fearlessly declared herself a teacher of 
the doctrine of Justification through Faith, rather than of Sanctification 
through Works ; the Covenant of Faith rather than of Good Works. These 
doctrines constituted substantially what was styled "Antinomianism," an 
obscure word and of little value in our day, except as an historic relic in 
the museum of antiquated theology. 

Mrs. Hutchinson's intensely practical temper led her to make applica- 
tion of her teachings to her own church and its ministers. She openly 
asserted and constantly affirmed that Rev. John Wilson was only a cold 
formalist, living in and teaching "The Covenant of Works." So far did 
she carry her dislike to the doctrine and its teachers, that she would walk 
out of the meeting house whenever Mr. Wilson and others of his think- 
ing began to preach, and many, of like belief with herself, followed her 
example. Her favorite teacher. Rev. John Cotton, was to her mind, a 
true disciple in "The Covenant of Grace," as was Rev. John Wheelwright, 
her brother-in-law, the minister of the church at Braintree, Mass. Mrs. 
Hutchinson's kindly spirit and generous services had won the hearts of 
the people of Boston. Her earnest arguments, clothed in winning words, 
won their intellectual assent and cordial adherence, so much so that the 
audiences at her Thursday afternoon meetings were larger than those at 
the First Church on Sundays. The leading men of Boston as well as the 
women, became adherents to her teachings, and at one time all but five 
members of the First Church claimed to be her followers. Among them 



264 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

were W^illiam Coddington, Sir Harry Vane, Governor, and the whole of 
ihe Aquidneck delegation. Gov. Winthrop stood with Rev. John Wilson 
in opposition to Mrs. Hutchinson. Outside of Boston, the ministry was 
unanimously opposed to her doctrines and teachings, and when she de- 
clared the clergy of The Bay Colony to be "cold formalists," "dead, with- 
out a name to live," "wliited sepulchres." "hypocrites," "false teachers," 
etc.. etc., they felt that, unless this new sectarian was silenced, their holy 
craft was in great danger of an ignominious overthrow, and that downfall 
would be due to a woman ! Was not the colony a theocracy ? \\'as not 
God's Word the rule of life in the new state? Was not the ministry the 
interpreters and teachers of that Word? Shall Heresy be allowed to de- 
stroy a Puritan Commonwealth? Shall the ministry, the church, the theoc- 
racy, the new order of statehood, go down under the assaults of a femi- 
nine foe "whose tongue was as a sword and her sex a shield ?" The voice 
of the clergy of the Bay Colony was almost as the voice of one man in an 
emphatic determination to put down this persistent advocate of adjudged 
pestilential and heretical doctrines. Rev. John Cotton and Rev. John 
Wheelwright aligned themselves with the .\ntinomian cause, although, in 
the case of Mr. Cotton, his attitude was later changed to one of opposition 
to his former English parishioner and favorite. 

For four years. — 1634-1638 — Mrs. Hutchinson had taught a new 
Revelation as to Church and State. In the midst of much debate that, in 
our time, seems incoherent and meaningless, this new school emphasized 
certain great, essential principles of modern Democracy, or what Mr. 
Lodge calls at that age liberal Puritanism. The open Forum at the Hutch- 
insons was none other than the free and untrammelled debate of the New 
England town meeting, in which John Adams tells us our liberties were 
first asserted and assured. Liberty of thought and speech were not only 
claimed as the right of freemen, but was fully illustrated and confirmed. 
But liberty of thought and expression is only another name for Religious 
Liberty, and it is not too much to affirm that in the Hutchinson School 
there was. for three years, the most absolute e.xercise of Religious Free- 
dom, as a basic principle of a Free State. 

Still more, the larger conception of a Free Commonwealth was 
evolved, in which all classes of people — clergy and laity, the rich and the 
poor, the learned and the unlearned. — stood as equals before the law, 
with rights as to life, liberty and justice, unabridged, except as for- 
feited by crime, or lost by incompetency. It is difficult to construct a 
broader platform in concerns civil, social, economical and religious, than 
we find claimed, advocated and for a brief time enjoyed, in the Hutchin- 
son Free State, at the corner of Washington and School streets, Boston, 
in the Bay Colony. 1634-1638. Even the claimants for the rights of man, 
irrespective of sex, may assume Anne Hutchinson of Boston as their 



BOSTON THE PREPARATORY SCHOOI, 265 

leader and first great advocate and ])ractitioner, so far as the conditions of 
her time made such claims and practice valid. 

Rev. John Wheelwright, minister to the Congregational church at 
Rraintree, born at Alford, Lincolnshire, 1592, was a non-conformist 
preacher, learned and eloquent, and withal a defender of "The Covenant 
of Grace." On a Fast Day in January, 1637, he delivered what Mr. 
Adams calls "the most momentous sermon ever preached from the Ameri- 
can pulpit." The sermon was a masterly defence of "The Covenant of 
Grace," as taught by Mrs. Hutchinson and himself, "against pagans and 
anti-Christians, and those that runne under a Covenant of Works." It 
was a bold affirmation of a spiritual faith in opposition to a worldly, un- 
spirited orthodo.xy. In March, 1637, the General Court declared Mr. 
Wheelwright guilty of contempt and sedition, deferred the sentence, and 
changed the seat of government to Cambridge, as Boston was in full 
sympathy with the accused minister. Troublous days are on at Boston. 
The spring election turned on the issue as to "The Covenants" — ortho- 
doxy triumphed. Governor Vane was defeated. Coddington failed of an 
election as an Assistant, and all of Mrs. Hutchinson's adherents on the 
general ticket were defeated. Fisticuffs were engaged in by the most de- 
vout, and Pastor Wilson climbed a tree to harangue the voters, all of 
whom were church members. Vane soon went back to England. Cod- 
dington was elected a Deputy to the General Court from Boston, as were 
William Aspinwall and John Coggeshall. Rev. John Cotton saw a new 
light in the election returns and was "won over to an uncompromising 
orthodoxy." Winthrop, Governor, and Endicott, Dudley, Bellingham, 
Bradstreet, Saltonstall and others of the orthodox party sat in the "Seats 
of the Mighty." In the spring election of 1637 in the Bay Colony the 
hands on the time piece of Progress and Spiritual Enfranchisement were 
set back into the twilight hours and the pendulum ceased to beat. 

xA.ugust 30, 1637, the first Cambridge Synod of Magistrates and Min- 
isters met at Newtown, and before it Mrs. Anne Hutchinson was sum- 
moned to answer to eighty-two "erroneous opinions" cherished and taught 
in her school at Boston. Single-handed and alone she withstood the 
assaults and answered the questionings of this large lay and clerical court, 
nearly all of whose numbers were hostile to the defendant. To those 
who care to read the celebrated polemic dialogue, reference is made to 
"Antinomianism in Massachusetts Bay Colony" by Charles Francis Adams. 
As was to be expected, Mrs. Hutchinson was heard and condemned by the 
Synod after a session of twenty-four days, and her case was referred to 
the Great and General Court of the Colony as well as to the church of 
which she was a member, for such discipline as those bodies might see fit 
to exercise. 



266 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

The session of the General Court of the Bay Colony in November, 
1637, was an event of mighty significance in the annals of American His- 
tory — probably greater than any that has since succeeded, for in and by 
it the magistrates declared various opinions heretical and also voted ban- 
ishment to a large body of the most eminent and valuable citizens of Bos- 
ton and other Colonial towns. As a result of such action and the forcible 
migration of this class of people, new towns were established in Northern 
and Southern New England and a new Colony was created on Aquidneck 
in Narragansett Bay, which embodied in its primal acts the principles of 
Civil and Religious Liberty, against whose establishment at Boston, the 
orthodox party of the Bay Colony, led by Governor John Winthrop, had 
so strenuously and successfully set themselves. "The Lord brethren" of 
Boston had shown themselves the lineal descendants of the Bishops of the 
mother land, and the several acts of scission made possible and certain the 
founding and permanent establishment of a liberal Puritan State on 
Aquidneck, in Narragansett Bay, dedicated to Civil and Soul Liberty from 
its first inception. 

"There's a Divinity that shapes our ends, 
Rough hew them how we will." 

Events of moment follow in rapid succession. We turn to the pages 
of the Records of The Colony of Massachusetts Bay in New England for 
their establishment: 

Nov. 2, 1637. '"Mr. John Wheelwright, being formerly convicted of 
contempt and sedition, and now justifying himself and his former practise, 
being to the disturbance of the civill peace, hee is by the Court disfran- 
chised and banished, having 14 days to settle his affaires, and if within that 
time hee depart not the patent, hee promiseth to render himselfe to Mr. 
Staughton, at his house, to bee kept till hee bee disposed of. 

"Mr. John Coggeshall being conventcd for disturbing the publike 
peace was disfranchised, and enjoyned not to speake anything to disturb 
the pubhke peace, upon pain of punishment." Mr. Coggeshall was a 
Deacon of the First Church and was recently elected as a Deputy from 
Boston as was Deacon William Aspinwall. Both were unceremoniously 
expelled from the General Court and a new election ordered. Mr. Cod- 
dington was also a Deputy from Boston, but was allowed to retain his 
seat in the court. 

"Mr. William Aspinwall being convented for having his hand to a 
petition or remonstrance, being a seditious libell. and justifiing the same, 
for which, and for his insolent and turbulent carriage, hee is disfranchised 
and banished, puting in sureties for his departure before the end of the 
first month next ensuing. 

"Mrs. (Anne) Hutchinson (wife of Mr. William Hutchinson), bemg 
convented for traducing the ministers and their ministry in this countr\\ 
shee declared volentarily her revelations for her ground, and that shee 
should be delivered and the Court ruined, with their posterity, and there- 
upon was banished, and the meane while was commited to Mr. Joseph 
Welde untill the Court shall dispose of her." 



BOSTON THE PREPARATORY SCHOOL 267 

These acts were all passed under date of Nov. 2, 1637. At the next 
sitting of the Court, on Nov. 15, several more citizens and freemen were 
disfranchised for signing the Wheelwright protest. Five days later, Nov. 
20, the General Court passed an act that, for unadulterated, high handed 
tyranny, has few more flagrant examples in the history of half civilized 
states. It was worthy of the insolent audacity of Archbishop Laud and 
the Star Chamber. Here it is fresh from the Records of The Colony of 
Massachusetts Bay, Vol. I, p. 211 : 

"Whereas the opinions and revelations of Mr. Wheelwright and Mrs. 
Hutchinson have seduced and led into dangerous errors many of the 
jieople heare in Newe England, insomuch as there is just cause of sus- 
pition that they, as others in Germany, in former times, may, upon some 
revelation, make some suddaine irruption upon those that ditter from them 
in judgment, for prevention whereof it is ordered, that all those whose 
names are underwritten shall (upon warning given or left at their dwelling 
houses) before the 30th day of this month of November, deliver at Mr. 
Cane's house, at Boston, all such guns, pistols, swords, powder, shot and 
match as they shall bee owners of, or have in their custody, upon paine of 
ten pound for every default to bee made thereof ; which amies are to bee 
kept by Mr. Cane till this Court shall take further order therein. Also, 
it is ordered, upon like penalty of £X that no man who is to render his 
armes by this order shall buy or borrow any guns, swords, pistols, powder, 
shot, or match, untill this Court shall take further order therein." 

Fifty-eight citizens of Boston are named and seventeen from nearby 
towns. On a groundless suspicion, for no crime, seventy-five heads of 
families are subjected to the humiliation of carrying to Mr. Cane's house 
in Boston, all the means of personal and family protection they possessed, 
thereby setting at naught the well established doctrine of the house the 
castle, not even entering the premises by a legal search warrant. 

Of the men of Boston, who, within a few months of this were found- 
ers of a new town at Aquidneck, were William Hutchinson, husband of 
Anne, Dea. William Aspinwall, Samuel Cole, William Dyer, husband of 
Mary, Edward Rainsford, John Batton, John Sanford, Richard Cooke, 
Richard Fairbanks, Oliver Mellows. Samuel Wilbour, John Oliver, Rich- 
ard Gridley, Zachariah Bosworth, William Townsend, William Pell, Rich- 
ard Hutchinson, James Johnson, Gen. Thomas Savage, John Odlin, 
Gamalial Wayte, Edward Hutchinson, Isaac Gross, Richard Carder, Rob- 
ert Harding, Richard Wayte, John Porter, Jacob Elliott, Thomas Wardell, 
William Wardell, William Baulston, William Freeborn, Henry Bull, Wil- 
liam Salter, Dr. John Qarke, Dea. John Coggeshall, Mr. Easton, of New- 
bury, Richard Bulgar and Philip Sherman, of Ro.xbury, all of whom were 
included in the act of disarmament of peaceable citizens, whose only civic 
offence was their endorsement of the liberal views of Mrs. Hutchinson and 
Rev. John Wheelwright as to a free church in a free state. It seems 



268 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

almost unbelievable that Governor John Winthrop and men of his type 
should have committed an act of such a criminal character, for which 
they could have been held amenable for treason against the state in tlie 
Courts of England. But the unjust order was obeyed, arms and ammuni- 
tion were given up by these hitherto loyal citizens, for the most part 
church members and freemen of the Bay Colony. Other plans and the 
founding of other towns and a new Colony possess the minds and hearts 
of these men and women, whose opinions as to civil and religious freedom 
are so at variance with the theocracy of Boston. 

The closing acts of the drama are a worthy sequel to the events which 
were inaugvirated by the advent of Anne Hutchinson to Boston in 1G34. 
The time is March, 1638. The place is the meeting house of the First 
Church of Boston. The Rev. John Wilson is in the pulpit, and Anne 
Hutchinson stands before him to receive the sentence of excommunication, 
with a crowded assembly as witnesses. It is the hour of the jubilant tri- 
umph of Puritan orthodoxy over a more liberal faith and a more liberal 
civil policy. Wilson and Winthrop are vindicated ; Anne Hutchinson is 
silenced. Listen to the words of condemnation rolling out of the mouth 
of the Puritan Pope of Boston against the female culprit at the foot of 
the sacred altar of the temple of the despised Jesus, — "Therefore in the 
name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the name of the church I do not 
only pronounce you worthy to be cast out, but I do cast you out ; and in 
the name of Qirist do I deliver you up to Satan, that you may learn no 
more to blaspheme, to seduce and to lie ; and I do account you from this 
time forth to be a Heathen and a Publican, and so to be held of all the 
brethren and sisters of this congregation and of others ; therefore I com- 
mand you in the name of Christ Jesus and of this church as a leper to 
withdraw yourself out of the congregation." It is difficult to think of 
such an awful utterance from a minister of the Gospel of Love of the 
Christ. One can almost see Angels weep and Satan laugh. 

As Anne Hutchinson turned from the altar to leave the house, bear- 
ing in her heart the heavy anathemas of the church she had loved, out of 
the awe-stricken throng came Mary Dyer, one of her disciples and de- 
voted friends, took her arm and walked by her side down the aisle and out 
of the house. One story has it that William Coddington also walked by 
her side. If not in fact, he did in spirit, as did all the devoted band who 
were preparing for a new exodus to a new land of promise. One standing 
at the meeting house door said to Mrs. Hutchinson. "The Lord sanctify 
this unto you." She replied, "The Lord judgeth not as man judgeth. Bet- 
ter to be cast out of the church than to deny Christ." A stranger in Bos- 
ton, pointing at Mary Dyer, asked, "Who is that young woman?" The 
reply was, "It is the woman which bore the monster." Twenty- four years 
later, Mary Dyer was hung on Boston Common for being a Quakeress. 



BOSTON THE PREPARATORY SCHOOL 269 

One more event is of record wh^n we turn to the great "experiment" 
for which eight years of Boston history has been the preparatory school, — 
the founding of The Colony of Rhode Island, in Narragansett Bay. We 
have already noted the vi-arnings of the Bay Colony, the notes of the im- 
pending separation, exclusion and banishment. On the 12th of March, 
1638, the summons is issued against Mr. Coddington and others as fol- 
lows: "Mr. William Coddington, Mr. John Coggeshall, Gov. Baulston, 
Edward Hutchinson, Samuel Wilbore, John Porter, John Compton, Henry 
Bull, Phihp Shearman, Willi Freeborne and Richd Carder, these haveing 
license to dept, summons is to go out for them to appear (if they bee not 
gone before) at the next Court, the third month, to answer such things as 
he objected." 

The Stone which the builders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony re- 
jected, shall soon become the comer of a new Commonwealth, styled The 
Colony of Rhode Island on Aquidneck. 




CHAPTER XV 



CONCERNING DR. JOHN CLARKE 



CHAPTER XV. 
CONCERNING DR. JOHN CLARKE. 

Dr. John Clarke of Aquidneck was in the fourth generation from 
John the first, through John and Thomas. He was the third son of 
Thomas and Rose Clarke and was born in Westhorpe, Suffolk Co., Oct. 
8, 1609. An older brotlier, Thomas, born 1605, and a younger brother, 
Joseph, born Dec. 9, 1618, were admitted inhabitants of Aquidneck, 1638, 
and united with their brother John in the formation of the First Baptist 
Church of Newport. R. I., in 1644. A fourth brother, Carew, born Feb. 
3, 1602, also settled at Newport. 

Little is known of the early years of Dr. Clarke, but it is absolutely 
certain that they were devoted to the acquisition of learning under the 
best conditions of that period of English life as we find him at the age of 
twenty-eight holding two professions, that of a physician and also an 
ordained minister of the Separatist faith. The best evidence we have as 
to the source of his academic education is obtained from a catalogue of 
the University of Leyden, Holland, 1575-1875. The entry is follows: 

Johannes Clarcq, Anylus, 17 July, 1635-273. 
"Album studioscrum Acadcmiac Lugduno Bataina, 

1575-1875- 
Acccdunt nomina curatorum et profcssorum per cadi'in sccula." 

Translation. 

"John Clarke. England 17 July, 1635-273." 

A Catalogue of the Students of the Academy at Leyden, Batavia, 

1 575-1875. 
Also the names of officers and teachers for the same period." 

As Dr. Clarke was a Non-Conformist, it seems easy to believe that 
he obtained his university education in this liberal town, the home of the 
Pilgrims of Plymouth from 1607 to 1620. It is also reasonable to assume 
that he was a member of or in fellowship with the Liberals of Holland, who 
had, as early as 161 1, affirmed the right of all men to religious liberty and 
the duty of obedience to lawful government. One of Dr. Clarke's biogra- 
phers states that "he attained high repute for ability and scholarship in lan- 
guages, including Latin, Greek and Hebrew, law. medicine and theology." 
As a man of classical learning and accurate scholarship appears from an 
"item" in his will : "Unto my loving friend, Richard Bailey, I give and 
bequeath my Concordance and Lexicon to it belonging, written by myself, 
being the fruit of several years study ; my Hebrew Bibles, Buxtorff's and 
Passor's Lexicon, Cotton's Concordance and all the rest of my books." 

R 1-18 



274 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

In the library of Harvard College is an ancient book, entitled "Holy 
Oyle for the Lampes of the Sanctuarie ; or Scriptirre Phrases Alpha- 
betically Disposed for the Use and Benefit of such as desire to speake the 
Language of Canaan, more especially the sonnes of the Prophets who 
would attain elegancie and sublimiitie of expression, by John Clarke, Mas- 
ter of Arts. London, printed by Aug. Mathews for Rob. Milbourne, and 
are to be sold at his shop at the Greyhound in St. Paul's Churchyard, 
1630" 

The book, 3,'/4 x "54, pp. 535, is dedicated in Latin to the Bishop of 
Lincoln and is dated at Lincoln, England, Nov. 12. 1629. It is a subject 
index to the Bible or an Analytical Concordance. The author says, 
"Amongst the world of bookes which are in the world, I never hitherto sawe 
or heard of any of this nature in any language now extinct. * * * * 
Come and see — a booke which may first serve instead of a Concordance 
for the finding out of many places in the Bible, especially of homogeneal 
sense, though not words, all or alwayes. Second, supply the want for a 
commentory upon divers passages of Holy Scriptures. * * * Thirdly, 
by the various expressions of the same things not only furnish a preacher 
with heavenlie and sweet elegancies, but also ver>^ much enrich his inven- 
tion. * * * The book is not, I confess, so exactly done as I could 
wish ; yet done it is as I have been able in my successive houres and time 
borrowed sometimes from sleepe (being first compared and since written 
out in the night) as thou mayeth easily perceive me to have beene nod- 
ding now and then." As there is but one k-nown Concordance by John 
Qarke. M. A., it is inferred that Dr. Clarke of Rhode Island is the author 
of the volume above described. 

Dr. Qarke was married three times. His first wife was Elizabeth 
Hargcs, daughter of John Harges, Esq., of Bedfordshire, England, whom 
he married before he left his native land in 1637. She died at Newport, 
without issue. February i, 1671, he married Mrs. Jane Fletcher by whom 
he had a daughter, born February 14, 1672. The mother died April 19, 
1672; the daughter died May 18, 1673. His third wife was Mrs. Sarah 
Davis, widow of Nicholas Davis. She died in 1692, surviving him sixteen 
years. 

In 1652, Dr. Clarke published in London a book styled "/// Ncwes 
from Neiv England." in which he introduced the substance of a tract 
issued in 1651. touching New England and particularly Rhode Island, in 
which he discourses on the occasion of his going out with others from 
Massachusetts Bay. As this record of Dr. Clarke is the first reliable state- 
ment of a participant in the events he relates it is worthy of special atten- 
tion here. 

"In the year 1637 I left my native land, and in the ninth month of the 
same, I (through mercy) arrived in Boston. I was no sooner on shore, 



CONCERXIXC DR. JOHN CLARKE 275 

but there appeared to me differences among them touching the covenants, 
and in points of evidencing a man's good estate, some prest hard for the 
Covenant of works, and for santicification to be the first and chief evi- 
dences ; others prest as hard for the Covenant of grace that was estabhshed 
upon better promises, and for the evidence of the spirit, as that which is 
a more certain, constant and satisfactory witness. I thought it not strange 
to see men differ about matters of Heaven, for I expect no less upon 
Earth. But to see that they were not able so to bear with others in their 
different understandings and consciences, as in these uttermost parts of 
the world to live peaceably together, whereupon I moved the latter, for as 
much as the land was before us and wide enough with the profer of Abra- 
ham to Lot, and for peace sake, to turn aside to the right hand or to the 
left. The motion was readily accepted and I was requested with some 
others to seek out a place which I was ready to do ; and thereupon by rea- 
son of the suffocating heat of the Summer before, I went to the North to 
be somewhat cooler, Ijut the Winter following proved so cold, that we were 
forced in the Spring to make towards the South ; so having sought the 
Lord for direction, we all agreed that while our vessel was passing about 
a large and dangerous Cape, we would cross over by land, having Long 
Hand and Dclcware-Bay in our eie for the place of our residence ; so to a 
town called Providence we came, which was begun by one M. Roger Wil- 
liams (who for matter of conscience had not long before been exiled from 
the former jurisdiction) by whom we were courteously and lovingly re- 
ceived, and with whom we advised about our design ; he readily presented 
two places before us in the same Naraganscts Bay, the one upon the main 
called Soimi'anws ( Barrington ), the other called then Acquedneck, now 
RodC'Iland; we enquired whether they would fall in any other Patent, for 
our resolution was to go out of them all ; he told us (to be brief ) that the 
way to know that, was to have recourse unto Plymouth: so our Vessell as 
yet not being come about, and we thus blockt up, the company determined 
to send to Plxmouth. and pitcht upon two others together with myself, re- 
questing also M. IVilliums to go to Plymouth to know how the case stood ; 
so we did : and the Magistrates thereof very lovingly gave us a meeting: I 
then informed them of the cause of our coming unto them, and desired 
them in a word of truth and faithfulness to inform us whether Sozv-wames 
were within their Patent, for we were now on the wing, and were resolved 
through the help of Christ, to get cleer of all, and be of ourselves, and pro- 
vided our way were cleer before us, it were all one for us to go further 
off, as to remain neer at hand ; their answer was, that Soxv-wames was the 
garden of their Patent, and the flour in the garden ; then I told them we 
could not desire it; but requested further in the like word of truth and 
faithfulness to be informed whether they laid claim to the Hands in the 
Naraganset Bay, and that in particular called Acqucdiu-ckf they all with 
a cheerful countenance made us this answer, it was in their thoughts to 
have advised us thereto, and if the provident hand of God should pitch 
us thereon they should look upon as free, and as loving neighbours and 
friends should be assistant unto us upon the main, &c. So we humbly 
thanked them, and returned with that answer : So it pleased the Lord by 
moving the hearts of the natives, even the chiefest thereof, to pitch us 
thereon, and by other occurrences of providence, which are too large here 
to relate : So that having bought them off to their full satisfaction, we 



276 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

have possessed the place ever since; and notwithstanding the different 
understandings and consciences amongst us, without interruption we agree 
to maintain civil Justice and judgment, neither are there such outrages 
committed mongst'us as in other parts of the Country are frequently seen." 

Dr. Clarke's convictions as to the rights of the individual conscience 
in religious concerns were clear and well established. He was also clear 
and strong as to full liberty in civil affairs. For these reasons he at once 
allied himself with the Hutchinson party on his arrival in Boston, and 
therefor was refused a residence and disarmed, with others, by the order 
of the General Court. 

We here note one of those remarkable events in history where there 
is a conjunction of the man and the hour. The Bay Colony has drawn 
the sharp line of division and dismemberment and has proceeded to dis- 
cipline the offending citizens, not in harmony with the Theocracy. Dea- 
cons Coggeshall and Aspinwall of the First Church, recently elected repre- 
sentatives of the General Court, are expelled from the Legislature, for 
their religious opinions. Coddington is defeated as Assistant for the same 
reason,— an office he has held since 1630. Governor Harry Vane, a strong 
supporter of Mrs. Hutchinson, has gone down to defeat before the clerical 
party of the colony and has left Boston for the home land, never to return. 
A religious war is on. A civil war is feared and the homes of the people 
are invaded by the "Act of Disarmament." Such experiences as these 
were soul-trving to the people of Boston, especially to those who composed 
the party of protest. Exile stares the Hutchinson party in the face. 
Homes, just built, must be given up, — property sacrificed, business inter- 
ests destroyed. Family and social ties must be surrendered. A new wil- 
derness must be invaded. Savage hospitality again be invoked. Nevf 
foundations must be laid which shall give security to property, life, liberty, 
civil and spiritual. The exodus period is at hand. Who shall be the leader 
of God's chosen flock from the bondage of the Bay Colony? 

The man is at hand. It is Dr. John Clarke, fresh from the clerical 
and medical studies of the liberal L'niversity of Leyden, and thoroughly 
inoculated with the spirit of Democracy. He is in his twenty-ninth year, — 
a strong, stalwart fellow, — over six feet in height, magnetic, — enthusiastic, 
— having a judicial mind. — a calm temper, — a bold and resolute will. He 
arrives in Boston when the town is stirred as never before or since, in a 
contest for the emancipation of the soul of man from the chains of a 
spiritual bondage. A freeman himself, he at once casts in his lot with 
advocates and disciples of a libera! Democracy, and at once is chosen their 
new leader and proposes the formation of a new state in a new land, free 
from the galling bonds of their present conditions, in the Bay Colony. On 
the shoulders of such a leader, at such a juncture, is the chief responsibil- 



CONCERNING DR. JOHN CLARKE 277 

ity placed of seeking a place of refuge and rest for a people whose hearts 
were set on civil and soul freedom. 

Dr. Clarke tells us in "111 Newes from New England" the state of 
affairs at Boston, on his arrival in November, 1637. He states that he 
moved for choosing a new location for a new Colony and that the motion 
being readily accepted, he with others were requested to seek out a place, 
without the jurisdiction of any Colony. The story of the choice of Aquid- 
neck is best told by Dr. Clarke, himself:— "By reason of the suffocating 
heat of the summer before, but the winter following proved so cold ( 1637- 
8), that we were forced in the spring to make towards the South." 

Concerning Dr. Qarke's services in the founding of Portsmouth and 
Newport, the details will be told in the chapters relating to those towns. 
It is sufficient here to state that he was the recognized founder and father 
of the Aquidneck Plantations, the author of the Compact of Portsmouth 
and the adviser and leading spirit in the organization and administration 
of the island towns. While he was an adherent of the school of Anne 
Hutchinson, he was not a blind follower, but held fast to Independency 
and carried on public worship at Newport, until in 1644, he organized a 
church "on the scheme and principles of the Baptists." Dr. Clarke was the 
minister and teacher of this church until his death, with the exception of 
the years 1652- 1663, while absent in London on Colonial business. It 
bears the name of the First Baptist John Oarke Memorial Church of New- 
port and has held the doctrines of the Particular or Calvinist Baptists from 
its founding until the present time. Several Baptist churches of differing 
opinions have sprung from the mother church at Newport. The old 
church, — claimed by many and with much of truth and justice in the claim, 
as the oldest orthodox Baptist church in America, — is still true to its tra- 
ditions and history and will preserve, with increasing interest as the years 
come and go, the name and the fame of its distinguished Founder, — Dr. 
John Clarke. 

In the year 1652, a book appeared in London, printed by Henry Hills 
living in Fleet- Yard, next door to the Race and Crown, written by John 
Clarke, Physician of Rhode Island in America. Its title was "/// Newes 
from Nczv England or a Narrative of New England's Persecution. When 
Wherein is Declared that while Old England is becoming new. New Eng- 
land is becoming old." This book had for its motive the remarkable story 
of the trials of Dr. John Qarke, Obadiah Holmes and John Crandall. free- 
men of the Colony of Rhode Island on Aquidneck and members of the 
Baptist church of Newport, and according to the title of the Narrative is 
"A Faithful and True Relation of the Prosecution of Obadiah Holmes, 
John Crandall, and John Clarke, merely for Conscience towards God, by 
the Principal Members of the Church, or Commonwealth of Massachusetts 
in New England, which rules over that part of the world." As one reads 



278 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

the story, it is found to be a real case of persecution for the sake of reli- 
gion and involves in the clearest fashion the principle of soul liberty. Dr. 
Garke uses the distressing experiences of the party to illustrate the full 
meaning of suttering for a religious conscience and introduces eight logical 
and scriptural "arguments against persecution for case of Conscience." 
The work shows the bright figure of religious liberty portrayed on the dark 
background of Massachusetts' intolerance, — the spirit of John Clarke of 
Newport in contrast with that of Governor John Endicott of the Bay 
Colony. 

The stor\- reads like one of the historic books of the old Hebrew 
Scriptures. "It came to pass that we three (Obadiah Holmes, John Cran- 
dall and John Clarke), by the good hand of our God, came into the Massa- 
chusetts Bay upon the i6 day of the 5th Moneth (16)51 ; and upon the 
19th of the same, upon occasion of business, we came unto a town in the 
same Bay called Lin (Lynn), where we lodged at a blind man's house 
neer two miles out of the Town, by name of William Witter, who being 
baptized unto Christ waits, as we also doe, for the Kingdom of God, and 
the full consolation of the Israel of God." 

On the 20th of July, Sunday, Dr. Clarke preached at Mr. Witter's 
house, \\'itter being a member of his church at Newport and too infirm to 
attend "the Publike Assemblie." To this ser\'ice at Witter's, "four or five 
strangers came in unexpected." During the service, two constables entered 
the house and with "clamorous tongues" interrupted Dr. Clarke's dis- 
course, "more uncivilly," says he, "than the Pursivants of the old English 
Bishops were wont to do." Their Warrant required them to go to the 
house of \Mlliam Witter and to search from house to house "for certain 
erronious persons, being strangers : and them to apprehend and in safe 
custody to keep and tomorrow morning (Monday) be eight of the Clock 
to bring before me — Robert Bridges." 

The offenders were watched over that night "as theeves and robbers," 
and being brought before the magistrate on Monday, were committed to 
prison until the next County^ Court, July 31. "Without producing either 
accuser, witness, jury, law of God, or man," John Clarke was sentenced to 
pay a fine of twenty pounds "or else be well whipt." Obadiah Holmes was 
to pay a fine of "thirty pounds or be well whipt," and John Crandall "five 
pounds or be well whipt," — Governor John Endicott issuing the sentences. 
On an appeal and a hearing on matters of faith and conscience. Dr. Clarke 
was set at liberty on the nth of August, 1651. Crandall was dismissed on 
payment of his fine. Holmes refused to pay the fine of thirty pounds and 
would not allow his friends to pay it for him, saying that "to pay it would 
be acknowledging himself to have done wrong, whereas his conscience 
testified that he had done right and he durst not accept deliverance in such 
a way." He was accordingly punished with thirty lashes from a three- 



CONCERNING DR. JOHN CLARKE 279 

corded whip, on Boston Common, with such severity "that in many days, 
if not some weeks, he could take no rest, but as he lay upon his knees and 
elbows, not being able to suffer any part of his body to touch the bed 
whereon he lay." He told the Magistrates, "You have struck me as with 
roses. Although the Lord hath made it easie to me, yet I pray God it may 
not be laid to your charge." On the death of Dr. Clarke in 1676, Mr. 
Holmes, a martyr for Soul Liberty, succeeded him as minister of the First 
Baptist Church of Newport. It is an easy matter to write books on Soul- 
Liberty. Easier still, is it to profess a belief in it. The rub comes when 
an officer commits to an old-time Colonial jail; when a Governor inflicts 
cruel judgments, and when an unwilling or an unfeeling Magistrate ex- 
torts heavy fines or inflicts public scourging with three corded whips, with 
teeth of scorpions. Better proof is not needed of the depths and sincerity 
of Aquidneck men in the doctrines of civil and religious liberty than the 
piety and patriotism of Clarke, Crandall and Holmes of Newport. 

Concerning Dr. Clarke's service in the Rhode Island Colony, his work 
in and for the Royal Charter of 1663, and his later work, the story will be 
told in succeeding chapters. 

Tributes to Dr. John Cl.\rke. 

His grand motive, — A just liberty to all men's spirits in spiritual 
maters. 

For his honoured and beloved Mr. John Clarke, an eminent witness 
of Christ Jesus agst ye bloodie Doctrine of Persecution, &c. — Roger Wil- 
liams. 

We must remark that this Colony (Rhode Island) was a settlement 
and plantation for religion and conscience sake. * * * The first 
planters of this Colony, and Island, fled not from religion, order or gopd 
government, but to have liberty to worship God and enjoy their own opin- 
ions and beliefs. * * * We find that religion and conscience began 
the Colony. * * * The posterity of a people, who were guided to 
this happy Island, as a safe retreat from the stormy winds, as a place of 
freedom to practice every branch of religion in. * * * Our fathers 
established a mutual liberty of conscience. * * * Liberty of con- 
science was never more fully enjoyed than here. * * * His memory 
(Dr. John Clarke's) is deserving of lasting honor for his efforts towards 
establishing the first government in the world, which gave to all equal 
and religious liberty. * * * He was the original proprietor of the 
r-ettlement on the Island and one of its ablest legislators. No character in 
New England is of purer fame than John Clarke. — Rev. John Callender, 
A. M., Century Sermon, 1739. 

John Clarke and his brave companions peaceably purchased "the Eden 
of America" from its aboriginal lords, and founded a Christian Colony in 
the midst of heathen barbarism. 

The two men who had been so long rivals in their public life, as agents 
of their respective colonies, but who had always maintained a mutual 



28o HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

friendship, passed from the world ahnost together. Dr. John Clarke ex- 
pired two weeks after Governor Winthrop, in the si.xty-seventh year of 
his age. To him Rhode Island was chiefly indebted for the extension of 
her territory on both sides of the Bay, as well as for the royal charter. He 
was a ripe scliolar. learned in two professions, besides having had large 
experience in diplomatic and political life. He was always in public 
life under the old Patent, as Commissioner and as General Treas- 
urer, from the first election of Commissioners held under it, until sent 
to England, where he was employed as Agent of the Colony for twelve 
years. On his return, he served as a Deputy in the Assembly from the 
first election under the Charter till he was made Deputy Governor, to which 
position he was three times elected, and served twice, closing his public 
life with that office, five years before his death. With all these public pur- 
suits, he continued the practice of his original profession as a physician, 
and also retained the pastoral charge of his church, as its records show. 
His life was devoted to the good of others. He was a patriot, a scholar, 
and a Christian. The purity of his character is conspicuous in many try- 
ing scenes, and his blameless, self-sacrificing life disarmed detraction and 
left him without an enemy. The Colony was largely indebted to him for 
advances made in securing the Charter. — Samuel G. Arnold. Historian of 
Rhode Island. 

The people (of Aquidneck) having recently transferred the judicial 
power from their own control to the Court and Juries, they enacted this 
law protecting liberty of conscience, not choosing to trust the judiciary 
with the keeping of that sacred principle for which they had transported 
themselves, first from England and then from Massachusetts. It was the 
foundation of the future statutes and Bill of Rights, which distinguished 
the early laws and character of the state and people of Rhode Island from 
the other English Colonies in America. — Bull's Memoirs of Rhode Island. 

Dr. John Clarke was the original projector of the settlement on Rhode 
Island, in 1638. and was subsequently one of its ablest legislators. 

He was the first regularly educated physician in Rhode Island and 
was an able, pious and distinguished man. — Prof. William Goddard, 
Brown Univ. 

Dr. Clarke's name must be dear to every citizen of Rhode Island, who 
venerates our ancient free religious institutions. — The Newport Repub- 
lican. 

Dr. Clarke practiced as a physician in London from 1652-1663. — Dr. 
Usher Parsons. 

It may be proper to take some particular notice of Mr. Clarke, who 
left as spotless a character as any man I knew of, that ever acted in any 
public station in this country. The Massachusetts writers have been so 
watchful and careful to publish whatever they could find which might 
seem to countenance their severities, they used towards dissenters from 
their way that I expected to find some thing of that nature against Mr. 
Clarke, but have happily been disappointed. 



CONCERNING DR. JOHN CLARKE 281 

Dr. John Clarke was a principal instrument in procuring Rhode 
Island for a people, persecuted elsewhere. — Rev. Isaac Backus, Historian, 

1777- 

Marble tablet in Hall of Newport Historical Society, erected by the 

Newport Medical Society, Dec, 1885 : 

To 

JOHN CLARKE, PHYSICIAN 

1609- 1676 

Founder of Newport 

And of the Civil Polity of Rhode Island. 

Scholar, Physician, Minister and Statesman. 

In 1676, died John Clarke, scholar, physician, minister and states- 
man ; above all, a pure patriot. Always in public affairs, his "blameless, 
self-sacrificing life" left him without an enemy, although in these times 
strife everywhere prevailed. 

John Clarke, more practical than Roger Williams, seized every oppor- 
unity to ally himself with the most liberal religious thought of Continental 
Europe, as well as of England. 

John Clarke laid his topographical lines as skillfully as he negotiated 
politically. 

They (the Quakers) flocked into Newport. Here they found a free 
atmosphere and many people with minds open for the reception of their 
ideas. 

Dr. John Clarke's expenses in England, while procuring the royal 
charter, the secured foundation of the Colony, had been slowly paid and 
never were fully liquidated. Yet no one deserved more from the planters 
than this enterprising, wise and forecasting statesman. Roger Williams 
berated Providence that they "ride securely by a new Cable and Ankor of 
Mr. Clarke's procuring." 

Sagacious as Charles the Second was, he built better than he knew, 
when he allowed absolute freedom of conscience in the little dependency 
of Rhode Island. — William B. Weeden, in "Early Rhode Island." 

Dr. John Clarke came to Boston, Nov., 1637. He became a follower 
of Mrs. Anne Hutchinson and is venerated as the founder of Newport. — 
James Savage, Gen. Dictionary. 

Who can describe the feelings of Clarke when he received from the 
hands of Charles H. that charter, which it was the great aim of his life to 
obtain. The Colony was now safe ; and there was at least one spot on the 
face of the globe where every man could sit under his own vine and fig 
tree, with none to make him afraid. * * * The joy in the Colony was 
equally great. * * * jf gyg,- ^ people were sincere in expressing their 
gratitude, it was when they voted thanks to their Sovereign Lord, King 
Charles the Second ; to the most honorable Earl of Clarendon ; and to their 
faithful agent, John Clarke. * * * it (the Royal Charter of 1663), 
constituted Rhode Lsland the Morning Star of Liberty to the world, and 
gave her a name and an influence that will never die. It was the wonder 
of the age when it was given, as it has been the admiration of each sue- 



282 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

ceeding age. * * * The Colony then assumed its permanent form, 
and was embodied in institutions that continue to this day, its central prin- 
ciple being Freedom, Especially Religious Freedom, Secured by Funda- 
mental Laii'. — Rev. S. Adlam, pastor Dr. John Clarke Memorial Church, 
Newport, 1871. 

I firmly believe that there was not then a better balanced mind than 
Dr. John Clarke's in all America and Rhode Island never had a more de- 
voted friend. He was prodigal of himself in her service, and when he died 
he gave the remnant of his fortune for the relief of her poor and the bring- 
ing up of her children to learning. — Hon. William P. Sheffield, Newport 
Oration, 1876. 

John Clarke Monument. — "Rhode Island owes to John Clarke a 
monument of granite and a statue of bronze." — John R. Bartlett, Secretary 
of State for Rhode Island, 1855-1872. 

LETTER OF MOSES BROWN TO PROF. J. D. KNOWLES. 

Providence. 17 of 6 mo., 1830. 
Respected Friend: — 

Thy letter of the 15th is before me. I have long wished that a correct 
account of Roger Williams could be made as our town and state is therein 
interested, but I apprehend thou wilt find it difficult to effect it with that 
candor and intelligence thou had when I first was acquainted by informa- 
tion thereof in thy youthful days, by reason that R. W.'s character has 
been written by his friends, who claim him of their party in religious 
matters. I mean not only Baptists but Presbyterians and others biassed 
by other means. Should thou correct the errors evidently made by Elder 
Backus (from others and himself") and from him repeated in English 
writers thou may not satisfy thy friends, and thou must calculate to find 
many friends which thou (probably) never heard of him that thou can 
but consider against his character as well as things favorable. Baptist 
writers in some respects disagree. Doct. Edwards on inquiry among our 
old people concluded and has left it in his historj', now in our Historical 
Society's library, that R. W. was never considered (first) an Elder, but 
that Chad Brown was the first Elder in the Baptist Church in this town, 
hut Elder Backnis has taken much pains to establish R. W. the first and 
in every other way to rai.^e the character of him beyond what well authen- 
ticated facts on Records disprove, and in his endeavor to e.xalt Roger's 
christian character, has eiideavored to lay waste that of ancient Friends, 
for which he wa-: called to account before some of his friends. 

R. W.'s firsi writing was very different from his latter, both as to 
matter and mannt r and he is accused by his opponent, John Cotton, then 
as not adhering to the truth. It will appear by Roger's own account that 
he was turned out of office by the King's party and by Baxter and Crosby's 
History of the Baptists and indeed by Backus that he was the Father of 
the Seekers in England ; that he was with Cromw ell and the Long Parlia- 
ment in England, to whom he addressed his writings and appeared so 
strong a Cromwellian, that he could not bear those who were for the 
King's party. Hence his difficulties arose with Gov. Coddington and 



CONCERNING DR. JOHN CLARKE 283 

others in this state and was also connected with the long dispute with the 
first 12 who purchased 12-13 of what he had from the natives and by his 
joining the after comers which became the strongest party, a law suit 
was kept up for 50 years and the Elder Backus says was settled in Roger 
Williams time, but was not finished until many years after his death by 
the heirs of the first purchasers who had the third time to apply to Eng- 
land to efifect and finally settle by themselves in 171 1. I mention these 
things as hints to give thee some idea of the difficult task, and I appre- 
hend Roger's character if fully looked into will not appear better than it 
now stands with the Baptist Society. 

Having been desirous a true history of our settlement and progress 
might be made, I long since made some small progress in obtaining some 
account of facts and among them some such as mentioned appear not to 
have been generally known, and I, having early probably like thyself con- 
ceived very high notions respecting the character of R. W., it was difficult 
for me to get so far released from them to admit many things I found on 
inquiry to be realities ; but at length, I became thoroughly satisfied that 
he was a very changeable man and yet a strong-minded, self-conceited, 
persevering man, making an unusual character for a man of talents and 
education. 

This off-hand sketch is not to discourage thee, but to prepare thy 
mind to receive proof of these statements, which with others, I shall be 
willing to give thee information, as far as my time and ability will admit 
of, if thou should conclude to proceed with the arduous task and feel 
willing and with thy usual candor proceed in the work. 

I don't here touch his treatment of the Quakers as that will appear 
in history from himself and those opposed. 

Dr. Edwards was of opinion that Dr. and Elder, (for he was both), 
John Clarke, a person of learning and persecuted in Massachusetts, ought 
much more to be considered the Father of this state and especially of the 
Baptists in it than R. Williams ; to this effect he was heard to express him- 
self by divers persons. 

He was Agent in England and procured the charter in which Relig- 
ious Liberty is so fully mentioned, but that which R. W. procured does 
not contain a word about it, tho Backus states it to be Roger William's 
Charter, &c. 

I remain thy friend, 

Moses Brown. 

Moses Brown, the writer of the above letter, was the son of James 
and Hope (Power) Brown and in the fifth generation from Chad Brown, 
who was the first ordained pastor of the First Baptist Church in Provi- 
dence. He was born in Providence, September 23, 1738, and died Septem- 
ber 6, 1836,— within 17 days of 98 years of age. His grandfather, James, 
was pastor of the First Baptist Church from 1726 to his death in 1732. 
Moses Brown knew many men and women who knew Roger Williams 
well and his knowledge of the history of early Providence exceeded that 
of any man of his time. This letter to Prof. Knowles, the historian of 



284 



HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 



Roger Williams, is from the "Moses Brown's Papers," in the Rhode 
Island Historical Society, and so far as the writer can ascertain, has 
never been printed. 

Moses Brown was eminent as a citizen, as a student, as a philan- 
thropist, and his views as to Roger Williams and his times and of Dr. John 
Qarke have a commanding value, as they express the opinions of the 
period just following the life and death of Mr. Williams. 




CHAPTER XVI 



THE FOUNDING OF PORTSMOUTH AND NEWPORT 




KEDWOUU LIBRARY, XKWPORT. ERliL i EU 1750 




OLD STATE HOUSE, NEWPORT 
Built about 1740 



CHAPTER XVI. 
THE FOUNDING OF PORTSMOUTH AND NEWPORT. 

The plans for founding a new colony, as prepared by Dr. John 
Clarke in the autumn of 1637, were matured at Boston during the few 
months that intervened before the act of practical scission, which sent 
so many of the leading and influential families of Boston into exile from 
the Bay Colony. Dr. Clarke was eminently fitted for the leadership of a 
fresh enterprise of this sort. He had not yet made a settlement for 
himself and family; he was not bound by any ties of association or rela- 
tionship with Boston interests, and could act the part of an impartial 
judge and diplomat, for which he was by nature and education so thor- 
oughly fitted. Besides, his liberal education for two professions, both of 
which he adorned, secured for him the full confidence of all the dissent- 
ing body. 

Dr. Clarke has already told us in his own language how the new 
migration was led to choose .•X.quidneck as the place of settlement of a 
new town, — it was outside the pale of any existing patent, adjoining a 
friendly people in Plymouth Colony, and purchaseable from the Narra- 
gansetts. In this purchase as well as in the choice of location, Mr. Wil- 
liams acted the hospitable, the friendly part. Concerning the purchase 
of Aquidneck, Mr. Williams, writing in 1658, says, "I have acknowledged 
the rights and properties of every inhabitant of Rhode Island (Aquid- 
neck) in peace; yet, since there is so much sound and noise of purchase 
and purchasers, I judge it not unreasonable to declare the rise and 
bottom of the planting of Rhode Island (Aquidneck) in the fountain of 
it. It was not price nor money that could have purchased Rhode Island. 
Rhode Island (Aquidneck) was obtained by love; by the love and favor 
which that honorable gentleman, Sir Henry Vane and myself had with 
that great sachem Miantonomi, about the league which I procured be- 
tween the Massachusetts English, etc., and the Narragansetts in the 
Pequod war. It is true I advised a gratuity to be presented to the sachem 
and the natives, and because Mr. Coddington and the rest of my loving 
countrymen were to inhabit the place and to be at the charge of the 
gratuities, I drew up a writing in Mr. Coddington's name, and in the 
names of such of my loving countrymen as came up with him and put it 
into as sure a form as I could at that time (amongst the Indians) for 
the benefit and assurance of the present and future inhabitants of the 
island. This I mention, that as that truly noble Sir Harry Vane hath 
been so great an instrument in the hand of God for procuring of this 
island (Aquidneck) from the barbarians, as also for procuring and con- 



288 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

firming the charter (1644), so it may by all due thankful acknowledge- 
ment be remembered and recorded of us and ours which reap and enjoy 
the sweet fruits of so great benefits and such unheard of liberties 
amongst us." 

The interest shown by Roger Williams towards his "loving country- 
men" was duly and deeply appreciated by the founder of Aquidneck and 
the services rendered were abundantly repaid when in securing the charter 
of the town of Providence, in 1649, the form of government of the 
Rhode Island Colony was made the pattern in the first organization of 
the town of Providence, at the head of the bay. 

It appears that the contract between Mr. Coddington "and his 
friends" and Canonicus and Miantonomi, in the purchase of Aquidneck, 
was made at Providence, soon after the return of the committee from 
their visit to Alyles Standish for the purchase of Sowams ( Barrington). 
Acting on the advice of the Plymouth people which was confirmed by 
Mr. ^^■illiams, Aquidneck was bought and Mr. Williams tells us he wrote 
the deed, the first of record of any of the lands of Rhode Island, for 
actual settlement. As will be seen, it is only a transfer of a life estate, 
although it was esteemed and treated as a warranty instrument by both 
parties. It is as follows: 

Deed from Cannonicus and Miantunomu chief sachems of the Narra- 
gansetts. of the purchase of the island of Aquidneck (Rhode Island) to 
William Coddington and others. March 24, 1637-38. 
The 24th of ye ist month called March, in ye yeare (soe commonly 
called) 1637. 

AIemor..\ndum. That we Cannonicus and Miantunomu ye two sach- 
ims of the Nanhiggansitts, by vertue of our generall command of this 
Bay, as allso the perticular subjectinge of the dead Sachims of Acqued- 
necke and Kitackamuckqutt, themselves and land unto us, have sold unto 
Mr. Coddington and his friends united unto him, the great Island of 
Acr|uednecke lyinge from hence Eastward in this Bay. as allso the marsh 
or grasse upon Quinunicutt and the rest of the Islands in the Bay (except- 
ing Chibacuwesa ( Prudence ) formerly sould unto Mr. Winthrop, the now 
Governour of the Massachusetts and Mr. Williams of Providence ; allso 
the grasse upon the rivers and coves about Kitickamuckqutt and from 
there to Paupausquatch, for the full payment of forty fathom of white 
beads, to be equally divided between us. In witness whereof we have 
here subscribed. 

Item. That by giveinge Miantunnomus ten coates and twenty howes 
to the present inhabitants, they shall remove themselves from ofl the 
Island before ne.xt winter. 

This deed was signed by the two sachems and witnessed by Roger 
Williams and Randall Holden. 

A fathom of white beads varied in value, at difi^erent periods, from 
five to ten shillings. Forty fathoms of white beads were equal to between 



FOUNDING OF PORTSMOUTH AND NEWPORT 28$ 

two hundred and four hundred shillings, the equivalent in American coin 
of between fifty and one hundred dollars. We sometimes satisfy our 
consciences with the reflection that our ancestors paid the Indians for 
their lands, but there must be a slight misgiving when we consider the 
fact that all the islands in our bay save one, were bought and paid for at 
so small a cost. But then they paid all that the poor red man asked and 
the bargain was a fair one. How could they have paid more? 

But there was still larger consideration, for Wanamataunemit, sachem 
of Aquidneck, acknowledges to five fathom of white wampum for his 
interest in the Islands. On the 6th of the fifth month (July) Massasoit 
freely consents and grants to "Mr. Coddington and his English friends 
united to him the use of any grasse or trees on ye maine land on Powa- 
kasick (Tiverton) side" for five fathom of wampum. On the nth of 
May, 1639, "Mr. Coddington and his friends united" to pay to Mianto- 
nomi ten fathoms of beads, for his "paines and travell in removing the 
natives ofif of the Island of Aquidneck." 

On the 22nd of November, 1639, Miantonomi receipted to Mr. Cod- 
dington and his friends united, twenty-three coats and thirteen hoes to 
distribute to the Indians that did inhabit Aquidneck "in full of all prom- 
ises, debts and demands for the said Island, and allso two tarkepes." 
These several payments in beads and other valuables constitute the full 
consideration for the Aquidneck purchase. 

Under date of April 14, 1652, Mr. Coddington relates that before 
leaving Boston in 1638, there was an agreement of several persons to 
make purchase of some place to the southward for a Plantation, whither 
they resolved to remove and that "some of them were sent out to view 
a place for themselves and such others as they should take in to the 
libertie of freemen and purchasers with them. And upon their view was 
purchased Rhode Island, with some small neighboring islands and priv- 
ileges of grasse and wood of the islands in the Bay and maine adjoyinge." 
At this date he delivers up the deeds of the purchases and the records to 
the proper authorities, holding in his own right and title only his own 
proportion. 

On the 27th of September, 1677, Mr. Coddington enters on the 
public records that when he was one of the magistrates of the Massachu- 
setts Bay Colony, "he was one of the persons that made a peace with 
Caunnonnicus and Mianantonomy in the Collony's behalfe of all the 
Narragansett Indians, and by order from the authoritie of the Massachu- 
setts a little before they made war with the Pequod Indians." 

Here then we have the combined statements of Dr. John Clarke, 
Roger Williams and William Coddington that a plan was formed in 
Boston for the establishment of a new Plantation to the southward; 
that eighteen persons assumed the business of selecting and purchasing 

R 1—19 



290 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

lands for the new Plantation ; that through the acquaintance of Mr. 
Coddington, Mr. Williams and Sir Henry Vane with Canonicus and 
Miantonomi, chief sachems of the Narragansetts, Aquidneck and several 
other islands in Narragansett Bay were purchased for money and other 
valuable considerations and deeded to Mr. Coddington and his associates, 
in ;\Iarch, 1638, to the full and complete satisfaction of all parties con- 
cerned. Here we are assured that the Aquidneck lands, although pur- 
chased for what in our time seems a trifle, were not an "Indian steal" or 
"land grab," but an honest and an honorable transaction, from which no 
trouble ever arose afterward, either between the parties to the contract 
or between the Colonists as owners, either as to the validity of the land 
titles or the relative rights of the settlers who occupied the lands and 
paid their proportion for their individual estates. Too great emphasis 
cannot be laid upon the fact that the Aquidneck purchase was not a pro- ' 
prietary, held in the interests of a few or of one man, but was, at the 
outset, bought in fee simple by a group of persons and deeded in fee 
simple to the persons who became settlers within the towns and Colony 
established on the purchase, — warranty deeds being given and recorded 
within a short time after the original settlement was made at Pocasset, 
in 1638. Still more, this body of purchasers represented a great body of 
people or families, who, exercised in the doctrine of civil and soul free- 
dom at Boston, had calmly and deliberately planned a new foundation, 
in accord with their united convictions, and for the accomplishment of 
these ends had bought a territory, on which to plant and develop institu- 
tions and homes, on the lines of a new civil, social and religious polity. 
We now find our Aquidneck Colonists dealing with realty in a manner 
which shows their high appreciation of the possession and full owner- 
ship of real estate, in accordance with the principles and under the forms 
of well established English laws. Socialism or community ownership 
of land was not regarded an essential element of Democracy. Individual 
ownership of real estate was the basis of the family fortune, transmitted 
from generation to generation. Its possession foreran the erection of 
houses and the cultivation of the fields. Among the first acts of the 
townspeople at Portsmouth was the assignment of lots and a public record 
of the location and owner. On the 20tli of May, 1638, at Portsmouth, 
"it is ordered and agreed upon that every man's allotment recorded in this 
Book shall be his sufficient evidence for him and his, rightly to possess 
and enjoy." 

Mr. John Coggeshall, Mr. John Sanford and Mr. John Porter were 
ordered to allot the lands to the owners. The price of land was fixed 
at two shillings per acre, "one-half presently, and the other half at the 
end of three months." Mr. John Clarke, Mr. JelTries, John Porter and 
Richard Burden were ordered to "survey all the lands near abouts and 



'^-^,j> c— v»- •.; 

■....if.,.., •B^-f/'''" ) 

-j-^f,^^., ,<:<.C'i>' 

THE l'OKl.s.\lijL 1 11 LUAll'ALl 



FOUNDING OF PORTSMOUTH AND NEWPORT 291 

bring in a Mapp or Plott of all the said lands." In the year 1640, March 
I, Nicholas Brown conveyed forty-five acres of land to John Wood by a 
warranty deed and about the same date Samuel Gorton conveyed to 
Philip Sherman, seven acres by the same title. 

With fixed land values, attached to land records, civil society has a 
real basis of equitable taxation, without which to provide for the general 
needs of society no progress is possible along lines for civic betterment. 
Without taxable property, real and personal, upon which a just rate of 
assessment may be levied, no body of people can possess coherency or 
claim autonomy. Public service can be built on revenue only, and in order 
to ensure the proper ends of organized society, the subjects of a state 
must contribute as nearly as possible in proportion to their respective 
abilities. Taxation is an essential to the social order and to civil govern- 
ment. The Aquidneck Colony recognized this intitular possession of 
estates, in record evidence and in the assessment of taxes to meet public 
needs. It is clearly manifest that in the undertaking of a new Plantation 
in New England, there was motive, forethought, experience in govern- 
ment, organization and resources in so large a measure of efficiency to 
establish the Primacy of the Aquidneck Colony in all matters pertaining 
thereto. The general reader, the political economist and the historian, will 
note that land estates, land records and taxation are chief corner stones 
in the foundation of a Democratic state. 

The Portsmouth Compact. 

Prior to leaving Boston, a compact was drawn up, under date of 
March 7, 1638, by which a number of the leading men of the proposed 
Colony incorporated themselves into "A Bodie Politik" to the end that 
they might go to their new Plantation in a formal organization, under a 
chosen leader or Governor. The compact is as follows : 

The 7th Day of the First Month, 1638. 
We whose names are underwritten do hereby solemnly in the presence 
of Jehovah incorporate ourselves into a Bodie Politick and as He shall 
help, will submit our persons, lives and estates unto our Lord Jesus 
Christ, the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, and to all those perfect 
and most absolute laws of His given in His Holy Word of truth, to be 
guided and judged thereby. 

Exodus, 24c., 3 -.4. 
II Cron., lie, 3. 
II Kings, II :i7. 
William Coddington, William Dyre, 

John Clarke, William Freeborne, 

William Hutchinson, Jr., Philip Shearman, 

John Coggeshall, John Walker, 

William Aspinwall, Richard Carder, 



292 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

Samuel Wilbore, William Baulston, 

John Porter, Edward Hutchinson, Sr., 

John San ford. Henry + Bull, 

Edward Hutchinson, Jr., Esq., Randall Holden. 
Thomas Savage, 

This compact was signed originally by twenty-three persons. The 
original paper is in the keeping of the Secretary of State, at the State 
House, Providence, a photograph of which appears on the opposite 
page. Four names, — Thomas Clarke, brother of John, John Johnson, 
William Hall and John Brightman, Esq., — follow the nineteen that appear 
above. Erasure marks have been made over these names, the reason for 
which it is not easy to understand as the first three were among the first 
recorded settlers of Newport, and Mr. Brightman may have been. 

This compact holds the same relation to the Aquidneck Colony that 
the Declaration of the Pilgrim Fathers, made and signed in the cabin 
of the Mayflower, had to the Pilgrim State at Plymouth. Massachusetts. 
Neither was a Constitution nor a Bill of Rights for a Colony. Boston 
called the compact an act of incorporation. Plymouth called theirs a cov- 
enant. Boston did the act in "the presence of Jehovah," Plymouth wrote 
"in the presence of God." Boston formed a "Bodie Politick." Plymouth 
called theirs a "Civill Bodie Politick." Boston submitted their "persons, 
lives and estates unto our Lord Jesus Christ." * * * "And to all 
those perfect and most absolute lawes of His given us in His Holy word 
of truth, to be guided and judged thereby." Plymouth promised sub- 
mission and obedience to such "just and equal lawes, ordinances, acts, 
constitutions and offices" as might be enacted, constituted and framed. 
E^ch compact had for its purpose the formation of a civil state under 
an orderly government. The Boston paper was probably written by Dr. 
John Clarke, whose piety and purpose lent a strongly religious sentiment 
to the document, so much so that some historians have called it theo- 
cratic. But Dr. Clarke did not classify The Christ as a theocrat, for all 
his writings make the great Teacher the interpreter of a new Democracy 
in which soul-liberty is established and enforced. 

Samuel G. Arnold, our Rhode Island historian, has given a very 
clear and just interpretation of the Portsmouth Compact. He says, "So 
prominent indeed is the religious character of this instrument, that it has 
by some been considered, although erroneously, as being itself 'a church 
covenant, which also embodied a civil compact.' Their plans were more 
matured than those of the Providence settlers. To establish a Colony 
independent of every other was their avowed intention, and the organi- 
zation of a regular government was their initial step. That their object 
was to lay the foundation of a Christian state, where all who bore the 
name might worship God according to the dictates of conscience, untram- 



FOUNDING OF PORTSMOUTH AND NEWPORT 293 

melled by written articles of faith, and unawed by the civil power, is 
proved by their declarations and by their subsequent conduct." * * * 

"The Aquidneck settlements for many years increased, more rapidly 
than those on the main land. The occasions appear to have been, for 
the most part, from a superior class in point of education and social 
standing, which for more than a century secured to them a controlhng 
influence in the Colony. Many of the leading men were more imbued 
with the Puritan spirit, acquired by their longer residence in Massachu- 
setts, which sympathized somewhat more with the law than with the 
liberty of the embryo state. It is foreshadowed in the compact and in 
a few years was realized in action. It had its advantages, however, and 
the chief of these were it enabled the people at once to organize a govern- 
ment and strengthened them to preserve it better than those of Providence, 
while it also was a means of securing and extending their influence over 
the other settlements, who looked up to them in many things, and received 
from them their first code of laws." 

The Portsmouth Compact was of the nature of a municipal charter. 
It stated in very general terms its purpose, — the formation of a civil 
government, — "a Bodie Politick." It also declared, in the most emphatic 
words, that the state to be organized was to be one of just laws, founded 
on Christian principles, and administered by upright men in harmony with 
those purposes and principles. The policy of the civil life of the new state 
was to be made manifest in the powers conferred and possessed by the 
members, in the character of the men chosen for office and in the func- 
tions and operations of the community life. The general corporate 
powers include civil freedom with religious liberty. Will the new Com- 
monwealth be true to its general declaration? If it is, it will become first 
among nations in the declaration and enforcement of the rights of 
universal freedom. 

A Democratic St.\te in the Making. 

The Portsmouth Compact, in its brief seventy words, involves several 
cardinal doctrines of a free state, the elucidation and illustration of which 
are made apparent in the development of the two towns, Portsmouth and 
Newport, as well as in their union as the Colony of Rhode Island on 
Aquidneck. 

The first of these doctrines is that of self-government, on which our 
several states and our Republic have been built. The founders of Ports- 
mouth acknowledged no human authority as their superior. They sub- 
mitted their "persons, lives and estates unto our Lord Jesus Christ," and 
to Him alone. It is manifest that freedom-, — personal, civil and spiritual, 
was bound up in the doctrine of self-government. The denial of religious 
liberty in a community of self-governing citizens, would be a contradic- 



294 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

tion of rights and, it will appear, in all the subsequent history of the 
Aquidneck Colony, that there was never an instance of the abridgement 
of the liberties of the people in civil or soul concerns, except in restraint 
of criminal acts. So thorough was the Declaration of Independence im- 
bedded in the minds of these Corporators that they ignored Colonial rela- 
tions with the mother land, and, so far as our studies entitle us to an 
opinion, hereby constituted and ordained the first free state in the world, 
organized by a body of freemen, independent of church or Colonial 
obligations. 

A second doctrine is this that the civil state is the instrument through 
and by which self-government shall be secured and assured. The Ports- 
mouth people, in the establishment of the first doctrine, must incorporate 
themselves "into a Bodie Politick" for the very end and purpose of 
maintaining self-government. A community, unincorporated, is a heap of 
sand, blown about by every wind of doctrine, a rope of sand with no 
bonds to hold it together. The entity of a state rests on the indissoluble 
bonds of social and civic unity, expressed in legal form and enduring 
principles. 

.A. third doctrine of immense value is the legitimacy and supremacy 
of law and the necessity of the civil magistrate as the right arm of the 
civil state for the enforcement of law and the protection of society. The 
Portsmouth Compact idealizes common law and the ancient English 
codes, after the style of the Hebrew lawgivers, by the expression of 
hyperbole, "Those perfect and most absolute laws of His given us in His 
Holy Word of Truth, to be judged and guided thereby." There is no 
doubt of the sincerity and honesty of the declaration and we can but admire 
the noble self-consecration of this new state — the purpose of the human 
to approximate toward the Divine. "Not failure but low aim is crime." 
That self government, civil and religious freedom, obedience to law and 
full submission to magistracy were the basic supports of the Portsmouth 
Compact and the Rhode Island Colony, we have but to refer to the letter 
of Dr. John Clarke, agent of the Colony of Rhode Island, to Qiarles 
the Second in 1662. Rhode Island Colonial Records, Vol I, pp. 485, et 
seq. : "Your petitioners were necessitated long since for cause of con- 
science, with respect to the worship and service of God to take up a 
resolution to quit their deare and native country and all their near and 
precious relations and enjoyments therein, and to expose themselves and 
their families to all the hazards and inconveniences which they might 
meete upon the vast and swelling ocean over which they should pass, or 
in the barbarous and howling wilderness to which they might come." 
* * * "Where for the aforesaid causes of conscience and for peace 
sake they were also necessitated to travail further among the barbarians 
in places untrod and with no small hazard to seek out a place of habita- 



FOUNDING OF PORTSMOUTH AND NEWPORT 295 

tion (Aquidneck), where, according to what was propounded in your 
petitioners first adventure, they might with freedome of conscience wor- 
ship the Lord their God as they were persuaded." 

Dr. Clarke tells the King that his Pilgrim band was guided by the 
Most High "to steere their course into the thickest of the most potent 
provinces and people of all that country. * * * Your petitioners 
found them free to admiration, not only to part with the choicest partes 
of their territoryes (Aquidneck and other islands) being no wayes in- 
feriour, for commodious harbours in all respects to any parts of the 
country, but also to quitt their native, ancient and very advantageous 
stations and dwellings thereon, to make roome for them." The above 
paragraphs from Dr. Clarke's long letter refer to the purchase of Aquid- 
neck and other islands from Canonicus and Miantonomi by Mr. Cod- 
dington and his associates, March 24, 1638. 

The next paragraph of the letter sets forth to King Charles most 
imf)ortant facts as to the motive of the founding of the Colony of Rhode 
Island (Aquidneck), the establishment of a corporate government and 
the adoption of the English code of laws and magistracy, "so far forth 
as the nature and constitution of the place and the professed cause of 
their conscience would permit." 

Dr. Clarke closes his letter with an earnest appeal for a new charter, 
"whereby under the wing of your Royall protection, we may not only be 
sheltered, but caused to flourish in our eivill and religious concernments 
in these remote parts of the world." 

In a second address to the King for "a charter of eivill corporation" 
Dr. Clarke, after further reference to "the wonderful passage of the 
Providence of the Most High," writes, "Your petitioners have it much on 
their hearts (if they may be permitted) to hold forth a livelie experiment 
that a flourishing Civill State may stand, yea, and best be maintained, 
and that among English spirits, with a full liberty in religious concern- 
ments, and that true pyety rightly grounded upon gospell principles will 
give the best and greatest security to true sovereignty, and will lay in 
the hearts of men the strongest obligations to truer loyalty." If the 
Portsmouth Compact of 1638 needed any commentary, nothing could be 
more complete and satisfactory than the historic setting of the instrument 
and the exact definition of its terms, purposes and meaning as given by 
its author, in his successful argument for a Royal Charter. 

As already stated the Portsmouth Compact was probably written 
and signed at Boston, under date of March 7, 1638. As it inaugurated 
for America and the world the principle of self-government or popular 
sovereignty, it did not ask or require any municipal, state or court sanc- 
tion. It was the free act of the sovereign people themselves, exercising 
the rights, natural and inalienable, to life, liberty and happiness. Jehovah 



296 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

was invoked as a witness to this great transaction, unique, singular, the 
first of its nature in the records of men. Had we naught else than this 
remarkable act of nineteen men at Boston (or a probable twenty-three), 
the Primacy of Portsmouth as an absolutely free municipality would be 
established, but we are only at the starting point of a series of events 
w-hich establish our claim beyond peradventure. 

Under date of the Compact appears the election of the executive of 
the sovereign state, with the title of Judge. The record is as follows: 

First Election by Freemen. 

The 7th of the first month, 1638. 
We that are Freemen Incorporate of this Bodie Politick do Elect and 
Constitute William Coddington, Esquire, a Judge amongst us, and^ do 
covenant to yield all due honour unto him accordmg to the lawes of God, 
and so far as in us lyes to maintaine the honour and privileges of his 
place which shall hereafter be ratified according unto God, the Lord help- 
ing us so to do. 

William Aspinwall. Scc'ry. 

0.\TH OF Office. 

I, William Coddington, Esquire, being called and chosen by the 
Freemen Incorporate of this Bodie Politick to be a Judge amongst them, 
do covenant to do Justice and Judgment impartially according to the 
lawes of God, and to maintaine the Fundamentall Rights and Privileges 
of this Bodie Politick, which shall hereafter be ratified according unto 
God, the Lord helping us so to do. 

Wm. Coddington. 

William Aspinwall is appointed Secretary. 

It is agreed that William Dyre shall be Clarke of this Body. 

.\s the claim is sometimes made that Connecticut was the first of the 
American Colonies to adopt Democratic ideals in civil afifairs, it is well 
to state essential differences and agreements as to that plantation and 
Aquidneck. A provincial government was instituted, under a Commis- 
sion from the General Court of Massachusetts (March 8. 1635), to eight 
of the persons who "had resolved to transplant themselves anu tneir 
estates unto the River Connecticut." * * * "that Commission taking 
rise from the desire of the people that removed, who judged it inconven- 
ient to go away without any form of government." In 1636, March 3rd, 
Roger Ludlowe, Esq. and seven others were made a Board of Commis- 
sioners "with full power and authoritie" "for the peaceable and quiett 
ordering the affaires of the said plantacion," Connecticut. In later legis- 
lation, Massachusetts Bay Colony claimed the territory of Connecticut as 
a Province lying within its Patent and subject to its control. 

Concerning the Coddington purchase of .\quidneck and other islands 
in Narragansett Bay, no claims of ownership or Patent rights were ever 
made by any Colony and the Indian quit-claim was never disputed as a 



' FOUNDING OF PORTSMOUTH AND NEWPORT 297 

fair title. The first voluntary Compact of the Connecticut towns, Wind- 
sor, Hartford and Wethersfield, was entered into Jan. 14, 1639, "as one 
Publike State or Commonwealth," to "enter into combination and confed- 
eration together, to mayntayne and presearve the liberty and purity of 
the gospell of our Lord Jesus wch we now professe, as also the discipline 
of the churches, which according to the truth of the said gospell is now 
practised amongst us ; As also in civill affaires to be guided and governed 
according to such Lawes, Rules, Orders and Decrees as shall be made," etc. 

Eleven decrees of the convention of the three towns constitute "the 
Fundamental Orders of Connecticut," which Bancroft and other his- 
torians denominate the first foundations of our American Constitution. 
As to this claim, Channing states correctly that this "celebrated Constitu- 
tion did little more than to formulate on paper the existing government of 
Massachusetts Bay." It agrees with the .'\quidneck Declaration in the 
recognition of "Almighty God" as the Wise Disposer of His Divine Prov- 
idence, and the Word of God as the source of both human and Divine 
Law. Both communities ordain officers of the same rank and a legis- 
lative body witli equal ]}Owers and privileges. 

In other matters the dilTerences are important and vital. Connecticut 
makes the civil state primarily the sponsor of "the liberty and purity of 
the Gospell of our Lord Jesus." Still more it makes "the discipline of 
the churches" a part of the duty of the state. This feature unites Church 
and State in one and constitutes a church-state and a state-church — in no 
sense unlike the Puritan church-state of the Bay Colony. 

In the Connecticut "orders," the General Court is made the supreme 
power of the Commonwealth, thereby transferring the supremacy of the 
people to a body chosen by and a creature of the people. The General 
Court, consisting of six elective persons beside the Governor, constituted 
the Colonial Judiciary to administer justice according to the laws. This 
plan of uniting the legislative, judicial and executive functions in one 
body may have been, as in the Bay Colony, a matter of economy in admin- 
istration, but absolutely undemocratic and unwise in principle. It is 
difficult to understand how clear minded historians can find the elements 
of a free republic under such a system. The more certain is this con- 
clusion when we state that there is no Bill of Rights as to civil or religious 
liberties and the peculiar qualification of the Governor that he must be a 
member of the Congregational Body, — the established church of the Col- 
ony. It is an interesting and most important bit of evidence as to the 
much vaunted civil government of Connecticut, that in the charter of 
1662, granted by Charles, the people "shall have and enjoy all Liberties 
and Immunities of free and natural Subjects * * * as if they and 
every one of them were born within the realm of England." This charter 
concluded all previous Colonial rights and privileges and reduced the 



298 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

people to the level of their brethren across the sea. Whatever of special 
republicanism belonged to the Hartford Colony by the "Orders" of 1635, 
was abolished twenty-seven years later by the Crown. 

In contradistinction to the civil polity of Connecticut and Massachu- 
setts Bay Colonies, the Aquidneck Colony affirms absolute freedom in 
civil and religious concerns, establishes no religious tests for office, pro- 
tects all religious faiths while patronizing none, establishes a distinct 
judiciary, and affirms and practises the principles of majority-nde in a 
Democratic state. 

The Colony of New Haven, the original constitution of which was 
adopted June 4, 1639, was more distinctly a church-state community than 
was Massachusetts Bay, and no claim has ever been made as to its exercise 
in "Democracie." As all the New England Colonies, except Rhode Island 
(Aquidneck),— Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, Hartford and New 
Haven, — in addition to other limitations on personal freedom, not oiJy 
suspended the operation of all just laws as to the Quakers, but both 
approved of and practised persecution of this sect in one form or another, 
we shall dismiss them as claimants in founding a state with religious free- 
dom as a cardinal doctrine, limiting our later contention to the claims 
made in behalf of Roger Williams and the Providence Plantations. 

Dr. Clarke tells us that a portion of the Boston party carae by vessel, 
"passing about a large and dangerous Cape" (Cape Cod). The time was 
March. 1638. The day of sailing from Boston is not known, nor is the 
date of arrival in Narragansett Bay. Dr. Clarke and some others fol- 
lowed the Indian trail through the forests, coming to Providence to con- 
sult with Roger Williams as to their location. The story of the purchase 
of Aquidneck has been told, and, when the overland and seagoing people 
meet, it is on the Island of Aquidneck, their future home. It is probable 
that the vessel entered the Sakonnet River and that emigrants came to 
land with their household goods on the northeast part of the Island of 
Aquidneck, in a section known by the Indian name Pocasset. The site 
of the original settlement was at the head of the Cove, north of the 
village of Newtown, and is easily located by ancient landmarks. The 
first general meeting of record of the new settlers from Boston was held 
on the 13th day of May, 1638, at which were present Messrs. William 
Coddington, William Hutchinson, John Coggeshall, Edward Hutchinson, 
William Baulston, John Clarke, John Porter, Samuel Wilbore, John San- 
ford, William Freeborne, Philip Sherman, John Walker and Randall 
Holden. At this meeting several orders were adopted as follows : 

1. None shall be received as inhabitants or freemen to build or plant 
upon the Island but such as shall be received in by the consent of the 
Bodye, and do submit to the Government that is or shall be established, 
according to the word of God. 



FOUNDING OF PORTSMOUTH AND NEWPORT 299 

2. The Town shall be built at the Springe and Mr. William Hutch- 
inson is permitted to have six lots for himself and his children, layed 
out at the Great Cove. 

3. An order for a five-rayle fence from Bay to Bay, the charge to 
be borne proportional to allotments of land was made and repealed. 

4. An order that every person should have one acre of Meadow for 
a beast, one acre for a sheep and one acre and a half for a horse was 
made and repealed. 

5. Every inhabitant of this Island shall be always provided of one 
muskett, one pound of powder, twenty bulletts, and two fathom of match, 
with Sword and rest and Bandeliers, all completely furnished. 

6. That the Meeting House shall be set on the neck of land that goes 
to the Maine of the Island where Mr. John Coggeshall and Mr. John 
Sanford shall lay it out. 

During the vear 1638-9 thirteen public town meetings were held for 
the transaction of public business. The records show allotments of lands 
to the inhabitants, with a record of each man's estate in the book of land 
records ; May 4, 1638, William Baulston was given consent "to erect and 
sett up a howese of entertainment for strangers, and also to brew beare 
and to sell wines and strong waters and such necessary provisions as may 
be usefull in any kind." June 4, 1638, William Baulston and Edward 
Hutchinson are chosen sergeants of the Traine Bands, Samuel Wilbore 
clerk, and Randall Holden and Henry Bull corporals. 

The lands of the Island are rated at two shillings per acre, one half 
to be paid "presently" and the other half in three months from date of 
purchase. 

Mr. William Hutchinson and Mr. John Coggeshall were chosen 
Treasurers for the Company, to receive and disburse money, as ordered. 

Mr. Sanford and four others are ordered to repair the highways 
between Aquidneck and Titicut, to be paid out of the treasury. 

Any freeman absenting himself from the town meeting "to treate 
upon the Public affaires of the Body, upon public warning (whether by 
beate of the drumm or otherwise), failing one-quarter of an hour after 
the second sound shall forfeit twelve pence, or if any one departs without 
leave, the same sum." 

Aug. 20, 1638. A pair of stockes with a whipping post was ordered 
to be made, to be paid for out of the treasury. 

Richard Dummer, Nicholas Easton, William Brenton and Robert 
Harding were admitted freemen. 

Aug. 23, 1638. A house for a prison was ordered, twelve feet long, 
two feet broad, ten foot studding, of sufficient strength and the cost to 
be paid out of the treasury. Mr. William Brenton was the builder. 

Mr. Richard Dummer, for building a mill, useful to the plantation, 
was granted an allotment of land equal to an estate of £150. 



300 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

Randall Holden was chosen town marshall "for one whole year." 

Sept. 15, 1638. Eight persons were arraigned "for a riott of drunk- 
enness." Two were sentenced to pay 5s. apiece and "to sett till the even- 
ing in the stockes ;" one to pay 5s. and "sett one houre in the stockes" 
and four were fined 5s. each for default. 

A committee was chosen to view damages done upon corn and other 
fruits. 

Nov. 5, 1638. The I2th of November was set apart as "a general day 
of Trayning for the Exercise of those who are able to beare armes in the 
arte of military discipline," for males between i6 and 50 years of age. 
Three- and six-acre house lots were laid out by ]\lr. Sanford and Mr. 
Jeffries. 

It was ordered that Mr. Edward Hutchinson shall bake bread for the 
use of the plantation, and that his bread for the assize shall be ordered 
by that body. 

Nov. 16, 1638. Mr. Nicholas Easton was granted an extra allotment 
of land for settling up a water mill "for the necessary use and good of the 
plantation." 

John Lutner. a carpenter, having left the Island without paying his 
debts, Messrs. Brenton and Coggeshall were ordered to seize his house 
and furniture to pay his debts, after appraisal of his property. 

Messrs. Coggeshall, Hutchinson, Wilbore and Dyer are chosen as a 
committee to buy venison of the Indians for three half-pence a pound, 
and these truck-masters are ordered to sell the meat at two pence per 
pound, a farthing to be paid into the Treasury, and the rest to the com-- 
mittee for their services. 

Jan. 2, 1638-9. At this meeting it was decided to choose three Elders 
"to assist the Judge in the execution of Justice and Judgment for the reg- 
ulating and ordering of all offences and offenders ; and for the drawing 
up and determining of all such Rules and Laws as shall be according to 
God, which may conduce to the Good and Welfare of the community." 
The Judge and the Elders were made accountable to the Body of Free- 
men, once every quarter of the year, for all "cases, actions and rules" 
which they have acted on, which could then be vetoed or repealed by that 
Body. 

.\t the first election Mr. Nicholas Easton, Mr. John Coggeshall and 
Mr. William Brenton were chosen Elders as Assistants to Judge William 
Coddington. 

Mr. John Clarke. Mr. Jeffries, John Porter and Richard Barden were 
chosen to "survey all the lands near abouts and bring in a Mapp or Piatt 
of all the said lands and so to make Report to the Judge and Elders, 
whereby they may receive information and direction for the distribution 
to each man his property." 



FOUNDING OF PORTSMOUTH AND NEWPORT 301 

The Judge and Elders were instructed to deal with William Aspin- 
wall concerning defaults, "as also concerning Invasions forreine anl 
domestick as also the determination of Military discipline, and the dis- 
posing of lands as well as the howse lotts and impropriations." 

Jan. II, 1638-9. "The Body being assembled with the Judge and 
Elders it was agreed (as necessary) for the Commonwealth, that a Con- 
stable and Sergeant should be chosen by the Body to execute the Lawes 
and penalties thereof." There follows in the records a statement of the 
duties of each officer. 

Samuel Wilbore was chosen Constable and Henry Bull Sergeant and 
both were "invested with the authority aforesayd and what else shall be 
found meet to concure with the office." 

It was voted that the prison be set near to or adjoining the house 
of Henry Bull, the Sergeant. 

April 30, 1639. It was ordered that a Court be held every quarter, 
"to doe right betwixt man and man," by a jury of twelve men, "also to 
put an end to any Controversy, if it amount not to the value of fortie 
shillings." 

On the same day, the Freemen of Pocasset asknowledged themselves 
"the legall subjects of his Majestic King Charles" and in his name bound 
themselves "into a civill body politique, unto his lawes according to 
matters of justice." At the same meeting, a Judge was elected "by the 
major voice." 

Farms for grain were laid out, ranging in size from thirty to four 
hundred acr€s. 

On March i, 1640, the first warranty deed apears of forty-five acres 
of land from Nicholas Brown to John Wood. 

We have been thus particular in noting the principal events of record 
as to the founding of Portsmouth and the town proceedings of the first 
year, for the purpose of showing the orderly procedure of the settlers of 
the new town of Aquidneck, called at first by the Indian name Pocasset. 
We see before our own eyes a town in the making. The several acts are 
so natural, so regular and so well matured that they seem, as they really 
are, the product of a long experience in civic building. By the records 
or between the lines we read of no personal differences, disputes or 
divisions. Their public deeds are so unanimous that they seem as the 
deed of a single person. The common weal augurs the founding of a 
strong Commonwealth. Each member renders essential aid in the perfect 
jointure of all the parts. There are no quarrels or fights over lands, or 
titles, or offices, or Covenants of Works or Grace. Pocasset is a family 
of families so far as all living evidence can be produced. A site is chosen 
for the town, near the Great Cove. Home lots of six acres are at once 
laid out, houses are built, gardens and fields planted, lands are surveyed, 



302 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

platted and allotted for farms, town officers are elected, a town treasury 
established, public money is provided for by sale of lands, fences are 
built, cattle, horses and sheep are secured, family and neighborhood pro- 
tection is assured by the provision for fire arms, a Meeting House is ord- 
ered built, a town common laid out, a house of entertainment or tavern is 
agreed upon, where "beare" may be brewed and wines and other "strong 
waters" bought and sold. Train Bands are organized, officers chosen and 
training days established, highways are laid out and highway surveyors 
chosen, their labor to be paid out of the town treasury, town meetings 
often bi-monthly are called by the "beate of the Dnmim," and a shilling 
fine levied on a late comer, town stocks and a whipping post were built 
with treasury money and in less than a month three men, arrested and 
found guilty "for a Riott of Drunkenness," were paying a portion of the 
judicial penalty with their arms and legs pinioned between the oak beams. 
The erection of a prison, though small in its dimensions, is proof of the 
purpose to shut up sturdy offenders in law breaking, and the choice of 
Henry Bull as town sergeant was an absolute guaranty that culprits would 
serve out their terms of commitment. With Samuel W'ilbore as Con- 
stable, "to inform in Generall of all manifest breaches of the Law of God, 
that tend to civill disturbance" and with Judge William Coddington and 
his associates on the bench "for the regulating and ordering of all offences 
and offenders," it is absolutely certain that the "Magistracy" was not a 
by-word nor a hissing at Pocasset, in 1638. 

To provide good corn meal, the chief ingredient of the renowned 
"Rhode Island Johnny Cake," two mills are provided, a wind and a 
water, and a land bounty falls to the owners. To provide venison, truck 
masters are chosen, who are authorized to pay three cents a pound to 
the Indians, to be sold at four cents, dividing the one penny between them- 
selves and the town treasury. To provide good bread, corn and rye, 
Mr. Edward Hutchinson was chosen town baker. Here then, on the 
Island of Aquidneck in Narragansett Bay. at Pocasset, was founded, in 
the year 1638, an American town on new lines. The founders were well- 
to-do, intelligent families of English birth. While in England, they be- 
longed to the liberal Puritan element. They left England that they might 
enjoy the largest liberty as to their religious beliefs, consistent with the 
doctrines of a civil state of the Democratic type. Coming to Boston 
between the years 1630 and 1638, they had experienced all the trials and 
dangers of a pioneer life, in which a severe climate, a wilderness land, 
and tribes of barbarous men were their chief welcome. Here they had 
had their first experience in the practical affairs of founding a town, in 
which most of the men and women were among the chief actors. Cod- 
dington, Coggeshall, the Hutchinsons, Aspinwall, Savage, Brenton and 
others had been elected and filled with honor, for successive years, offices 



FOUNDING OF PORTSMOUTH AND NEWPORT 303 

of honor, trust and service. Most of them had been members of the 
First Church of Boston and two were deacons, at the time of discipline. 
In the year 1634, a new thought, born in the breast of a bright- 
minded EngHsh woman, Anne Hutchinson, is announced and taught in 
Boston and is accepted as truth by the majority of the people of the 
town. That thought embraced in its unfolding all the more modern 
concepts of a free spiritual faith in a free state. To our minds, it was 
involved in terms often ambiguous and perplexing, but it was so real in 
that day that its free discussion and long acceptance threatened the ex- 
istence of the Puritan church and Colony. We have already, in another 
chapter, related the incident and its outcome. Church discipline, social 
and official ostracism, and civil disbarment and banishment follow in 
quick succession, and a whole township of people, — men, women, child- 
ren, babes in arms, — was forced to part with homes, built and comfortably 
furnished, leaving lands, businesses and other property interests practically 
confiscated and abandoned, for a second sea voyage to erect a new Plan- 
tation, in the Narragansett Country, — a terra incognita to these Pilgrims 
of a new civil polity and spiritual vision. United as they iiave been at 
Boston, in social, civil and church relations, in doctrinal accord in matters 
of soul freedom', these people are bound as with bands of steel in one 
purpose to erect a "Body Politick," of a new pattern, the primacy of 
which must challenge the judgment of men. 

The Founding of Newport. 

At Pocasset, on the 28th day of April, 1O39, the following agreement 
was made by a portion of the founders of that community: 

Agreement. 
It is agreed by us whose hands are underwritten, to propagate a 
Plantation in the midst of the Island or elsewhere ; And doe engage our- 
selves to bear equal! charges, answerable to our strength and estates in 
common; and that our determination shall be by major voice of Judges 
and Elders ; the Judge to have a double voice. 

Present. 
William Coddington, Judge, John Clarke, 

Nicholas Easton, Jeremy Clarke! 

John Coggeshall, Thomas Hazard, 

William Brenton, Henry Bull, 

William Dyre, Cl'k. 

Several important reasons led to the separation of the first settlers 
of Pocasset and the founding of a new town at the South end of Aquid- 
neck. The first was the influx of a large number of families from Boston 
to the Pocasset settlement. In addition to those who were banished or 
ostracised, leaving the Bay Colony by compulsion, many of Anne Hutch- 



304 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

inson's associates in the school of freedom followed her to and made 
homes on the Island. Boston's great loss was Pocasset's great gain. It 
is estimated that one hundred families came to the new town in the first 
year, 1638. thereby forming a large body of claimants for land, extending 
their homesteads over a large section of the north end of the Island. 

A second reason lay in the fact that the first settlement was made in 
great haste, after the purchase of Aquidneck. The purchase was made 
while the main body of the people were sailing on an undetermined voy- 
age from Boston to Narragansett Bay and the first town was located on 
Sakonnet River, near their landing place. No survey had been made of 
the Island and the first eligible location invited occupation. During the 
year 1638 the whole area had been visited and a portion of the company 
saw, in the commodious, land-locked waters of the lower Narragansett, 
a future harbor for shipping, trade and commerce, and in the surrounding 
lands, fertile soils and commanding sites for residences. The names of 
Easton. Brenton and Garke. the earliest residents, survive in local geo- 
graphical usage, in and about the city of Newport. 

It does not appear that any denominational differences had arisen, 
nor do the records show any but the most cordial relations existing 
among the settlers of the Island before and after the formation of the 
new town, Newport. It is well known, however, that Dr. John Clarke 
was an ordained non-comformist minister, and that in the year 1644, 
the First Baptist Church was organized at Newport, with Dr. Clarke as 
its minister. It is a matter of more than passing note that Dr. Clarke 
conducted public worship for both the Congregational and other ele- 
ments on Aquidneck from 1638 to 1644, with the interval of a few months, 
when Mr. Robert Lenthal taught a public school at Newport and con- 
ducted religious services at the Newport Congregational meeting house. 
As a meeting house was built at Portsmouth for public worship in 1638, 
Rev. John Callender in his "Century Sermon" wrote, "there is no reason 
to think that persons of their zeal (Portsmouth and Newport) should 
immediately fall into a total neglect of a social worship." As the Bap- 
tists were a despised and persecuted sect in England and in Massachusetts 
Bay Colony, we have here a fine illustration of the Catholic, tolerant spirit 
of the Aquidneck founders, not only in following Dr. John Clarke in civil 
leadership, but in adopting him and his teachings in spiritual leadership. 
It was no ordinary Puritan congregation to which Dr. Clarke ministered, 
for, at the double Sunday services, there sat in the pews, William Cod- 
dington, Judge, Anne Hutchinson, reformer. Deacons Coggeshall and 
Aspinwall, the Brentons, Bulls, Eastons, and, not least, his own brothers, 
Joseph and Thomas Clarke, who joined him in organizing a Baptist 
church at Newport. Here certainly was Simon-pure religious freedom, 



FOUNDING OF PORTSMOUTH AND NEWPORT 305 

in a community taught at Boston by the broad-minded, liberal Anne 
Hutchinson. 

At the meeting of the town's people it was agreed that the Plantation 
should be called Newport and should extend towards Pocasset for the 
space of five miles, and Mr. John Clarke, Mr. Jeffreys, Thos. Hazard 
and William Dyer were chosen to lay out the lands and highways, allow- 
ing to each family a home lot of four acres. Trade with the Indians was 
made free for all people. Mr. Robert JeiTries was chosen town treasurer. 
The Secretary, Mr. Dyer, was paid £ 19 and ten acres of land for services. 
It was agreed that in the Quarter Courts, the determination of matters 
was by majority vote, the Judge having two votes. 

C)n the 25th of December, 1639, the town affirmed its allegiance to 
King Charles, "as Natural subjects to our Prince, and subject to his 
Lawes, all matters that concern the Peace shall be by those that are officers 
of the Peace, transacted ; and all actions of the case or Dept shall be in 
such Courts as by order are here appointed, and by such Judges are are 
Deputed." 

Mr. Jeremy Clarke was chosen Constable for one year. Mr. William 
Foster was chosen "Clerke of the Traine Band" and was ordered to report 
on the condition of the .A.rms. Robert Jeffries was chosen as drill master 
of the Military Company. It was ordered "that noe man shall go two 
miles from the Towne unarmed, eyther with Gunn or Sword, and that 
none shall come to any public meeting without his weapon. Upon defeauit 
of eyther he shall forfeit five shillings." Commissioners were chosen to 
negotiate business with Pocasset. At the same meeting (1639), Mr. 
Easton and John Clarke were instructed to inform Mr. \'ane (Harry) 
by writing, of the state of things here "and desire him to treate about 
the obtaining a- Patent of the Island from his Majestic, and likewise to 
write to Mr. Thomas Burrwood. brother to Mr. Easton, concerning the 
same thing." 

On the 3rd of Decemljer, 1639, John Bartlett and John Hadson were 
fined five shillings each for "the Breach of the Peace, by their excess in 
drinking." A fortnight later, Mr. Easton was fined five shillings for 
"coming to the public meeting without his weapon." .\t this meeting 
orders were issued as to building post and rail fences, the restraint of 
hogs, provision for bulls, — one for every twenty cows, keepers for herds 
of cattle, and the firing of lands after March the first. The Treasurer 
was ordered to "provide forthwith a pair of Stocks and a whipping post 
to be sett in some place as he shall have order for, in ye town of 
Niewport." 

We have seen that Boston was the seat of the school of a liberal 
Democracy and of tolerance in religious concerns. We have also seen a 

R 1—20 



3o6 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

colony of families forced to separate from the Massachusetts Bay Colony, 
on account of their decided convictions as to civil and religious freedom, 
in opposition to a Puritan theocracy. Assured in conscience, united by 
a persistent and in a measure, a subtle persecution for conscience's sake 
in spiritual things, this large body of people consult, plan, decide, act. 
Led in their e.xodus by Dr. John Oarke, ably seconded by William Cod- 
dington, Anne Hutchinson, and other very competent and experienced 
persons, Aquidneck was purchased, a civil compact of incorporation was 
drawn and signed at Boston, and a vessel load of emigrants with their 
personal belongings sail from Boston, for an unknown port, leaving 
homes, lands, businesses behind them, — in their search for the land of 
their day-dreams, — a land of absolute freedom. The sacrifice was great, 
but their vision of a land of Freedom restrained their tears and silenced 
heart throbbings. This was the initial act in founding the Common- 
wealth of Rhode Island on Aquidneck, in 163S. 

The second act appears in the settlement and organization of the two 
towns, Portsmouth, 1638, and Newport in 1639, by this English Massa- 
chusetts Bay Colony company. The records of the planting of these 
towns occupy eighty- four pages of the first volume of the Rhode Island 
Colonial Records, — pages 45-128, inclusive, to which reference is made 
and the contents are entered as an essential factor of my argument. In 
the preface will be found an outline of the fundamentals of a sovereign 
state, — of such importance as to command a reading. This outline com- 
bines a body of men and women, in general agreement in faith and polity, 
with an intelligent understanding of the relations of the individual to civil 
society. A charter or compact is adopted embracing the basic principles 
of the inchoate state, with conditions and limitations as to freemanship 
and all the institutions, functions and officials for the establishment of 
orderly government. It is of the utmost import that rules and laws be 
established for protecting the rights of life, liberty, property and repu- 
tation, and the choice and installation of all officials for the safeguarding 
by whole people and the execution of the laws adopted by the body politic. 
Reviewing the records of the two towns, Portsmouth, 1638, and New- 
port, 1639, we find. 

First, A large body of people of Boston and other towns in The Bay 
Colony, in the years 1637 and 8, made plans to found a new Plantation 
and sent out scouts. North and South, for a satisfactory location for 
settlement. 

Sccofid, All were in accord as to matters of religious faith and civil 
polity, holding to absolute freedom in spiritual concerns, within the bonds 
of a Democratic state. 

Third, A civil Compact was formed at Boston under date of March 



FOUNDING OF PORTSMOUTH AND NEWPORT 307 

7, 1638, as the basis of law and order in the Commonwealth to be estab- 
Hshed, wherein the teachings of Jesus had full recognition. 

Fourth, The gravity of the transaction appears in the breaking up 
of newly established homes and of business, the severance of social and 
church ties and the second endeavor of many families, moved by a com- 
mon motive, to found homes and civil society in accord with their ideas 
and consciences as to Liberty. 

Fifth, Aquidneck and other Islands in Narragansett Bay were pur- 
chased for the future home of the Colonists from The Bay Colony, under 
date of March 24, 1638. 

Sixth, The body of emigrants took ship at Boston, voyaged to Aquid- 
neck, landed in the neighborhood of the shores of Mount Hope Bay, and 
located their first town, called Pocasset, the Indian name of the place, 
in the Northeastern part of their Island purchase, in 1638. 

Seventh, A year later, April 28, 1639, a second town, called Newport, 
was established at the South end of the Island Aquidneck, by the same 
body essentially that found Pocasset, the year previous. 

Eighth, Both towns established practically the same body of laws 
and were both, as civil bodies, at first, under the guidance of a Judge 
elected by a majority vote, and later under an added magistracy of three 
Elders or Aldermen, constituting a Justice's Court as well as a legislative 
body, for each town. 

Ninth, Lands were allotted to the amount of six acres for home lots 
and farm outlands, according to the needs and financial ability of the 
purchaser, at a uniform price of two shillings an acre. 

Tenth, Town officers were elected by majority vote of the Freemen 
and consisted of a Judge, three Elders or Aldermen, a Clerk, a Treasurer, 
a Surveyor, a Constable, a Sergeant, Surveyors of Highways, a Plantation 
Baker, and several committees for specific ends. 

Eleventh, Among the institutions established by each town, the first 
year, were a Meeting House, a prison, stocks and whipping posts, a Court 
of Justice, pounds for cattle, wind and water mills, taxation and a town 
treasury, the issuance and records of deeds and land titles, a military 
train or band regularly officered, training days, public houses for enter- 
tainment of man and beast, a ferry established to the main land, arms 
and ammunition provided for family and general defence, a nightly town 
watch, provisions for the poor, and in the year 1640, the town of New- 
port set up a public school, set apart lands for school purposes and chose 
Mr. Robert Lenthal as the first public school teacher of the town. 

Tivelfth, Town meetings were held regularly at which all public 
aflfairs were considered and decided by the major vote, lateness in attend- 
ance or absence being punishable by a fine. The town council as it may 



3o8 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

be termed, acted in the absence of instructions, but its acts could be 
negatived by vote of the Freemen. Courts of Justice were held quarterly 
or as cases might demand consideration. Magistracy was held in high 
repute and fines and other punishments administered irrespective of rank 
of the offender. Town governments thus established, at the outset, by 
people, who, both in England and at Boston and other Bay Colony towns 
had been accustomed to orderly administration of civic affairs, continued 
in establishing order, systematic procedure, and a high standard of public 
service. 

But what is most significant is the absolute fact that all this inaug- 
uration of government, laws, institutions, legal processes, public taxation, 
etc., etc., in a wilderness land, under strangely new conditions, was ac- 
complished with but few hindrances, and so far as the records show, with 
a remarkably unanimity and large consideration for the public weal. 

Another fact stands high above all others. It is this. — no person 
within the compass of the two towns, Portsmouth and Newport, later the 
Colony of Rhode Island, was ever called to a Court of Inquisition for his 
religious belief or practise and no person was ever deprived of his liberty 
and civic freedom in opinion and action, except for crime. 




CHAPTER XVII 



THE FOUNDING OF THE COLONY OF RHODE 
ISLAND ON AQUIDNECK 




OLD .MILL AT rORTSAIOUTII 



mr' 



m- 





KUWLAXD KOCLXSOX HOUSL, XOKTH KLXGSTON 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE FOUNDING OF THE COLONY OF RHODE ISLAND ON 

AQUIDNECK. 

The history of the first year of the towns of Portsmouth and New- 
port shows that the founders were men of thought and action, united in 
purpose and pursuing it vigorously, courageously. The Island of Aquid- 
neck was a land of forests. The first houses were built of the live 
timber, oak, pine, maple, growing on the lands of the planters. The 
breaking of the virgin soil by mattock and spade was no holiday affair, 
for an acre of ground must be cultivated to support each member of the 
family. Deer, bears, foxes, wolves inhabited the forests of the Island 
and Main. Clams and fish abounded and these fish and meat supplies 
with beans, corn and rye bread and Rhode Island Johnny cakes con- 
stituted the food of the founders. Little wonder that they were healthy 
and well filled with ambition and energy for their great, masterly under- 
taking, — the building a Free Commonwealth. 

It is worthy of note that both towns were founded by the same per- 
sons, thereby ensuring the construction of the same town organization 
and preserving mutual friendship and coherency. One looks in vain for 
evidence of disorder, quarrels, local or town dissensions. Differences in 
opinion and action are the best proofs of a healthy individualism, and 
such differences undoubtedly existed, or the society could not have been 
human. It may be asserted, without fear of contradiction, that the 
settlers of Aquidneck were freer from disturbing agencies than any 
other American Colony or settlement. The next step in advance of a 
well regulated town government was the foundation of a state by the 
union of the two towns, under one general government. It has been 
noted that "the Body Politicke in the He of Aquethnec, inhabiting," on 
the 25th of November, 1639, did instruct Mr. Easton and Mr. John 
Garke to write to Sir Harry Vane, their former associate and sympath- 
etic friend in Boston, to treat with King Charles for "obtaining a Patent 
of the Island from his Majestie." 

Four months later, on the 12th of March, 1640, at the general election 
in the town of Newport, a delegation from the town of Pocasset, con- 
sisting of Mr. William Hutchinson, Mr. William Baulston, Mr. John 
Sanford, John Porter, Adam Mott, William Freeborne, John Walker, 
Philip Sherman, Richard Carder and Randall Holden, presented them- 
selves, and, in behalf of the town of Pocasset, asked to be "reunited" to 
the Newport government, and the clerk of the town of Newport records 



312 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

the fact, "are readily embraced by us." By this simple act of affirmation 
a colony was formed, the first among men "holding forth a lively experi- 
ment that a flourishing civill state may stand, yea, and best be maintained, 
and that among English spirits, with a full liberty in religious concern- 
ments." On the 1 2th day of March, 1640, the two towns united at New- 
port, by unanimous agreement, to form the Colony which, later, assumed 
the name of the Island, Rhode Island, thereby assuring the Primacy of 
Rhode Island on Aquidneck as a Democratic state. 

The legislation, accompanying this great act of new sovereignty was 
as follows: "It is ordered that the Chiefe Magistrate of the Island shall 
be called Governour, and the next Deputie Governour, and the rest of 
the Magistrates Assistants, and this to stand for a decree." "It is agreed, 
that the Governor and two Assistants shall be chosen in one town, and 
the Deputy Governour and two other Assistants in the other town." "It 
is ordered that the plantation at the other end of the Island shall be 
called Portsmouth." 

The following officers of the new state were then elected: 
Governor, Mr. William Coddington. 
Deputy Governor, Mr. William Brenton. 
Assistants, 

Mr. Nicholas Easton, 
Mr. Jolm Coggeshall, 
Mr. William Hutchinson, 
Mr. John Porter. 
Treasurers, 

Mr. Robert Jeffreys, 
Mr. William Baulston. 
Secretary, William Dyer. 
Constable for Newport, Mr. Jeremy Clarke. 
Constable for Portsmouth, Mr. John Sanford. 
Sergeant, Henry Bull. 

It was ordered that the Governor and Assistants be invested with 
the powers and offices of Justice of the Peace. 

It was ordered that five men be chosen to lay out the lands belonging 
to the town of Portsmouth and five for Newport. 

By a majority vote of each town, the Freemen were authorized to 
select certain men to allot the public lands to settlers, and when laid out 
to record the same at the General Court. 

At the Genera! Court of the two towns, held on May 6th, 1640, at 
Newport, it was enacted as a war measure, "that in each Plantation there 
bee this forme dulie observed; that as soone as notice is given of any 
probable incursion, that then forthwith Three Musketts be distinctly dis- 



COLONY OF RHODE ISLAND ON AQUIDNECK 313 

charged and the Drum or Drummes incessantly to beat an Alarum ; and 
that forthwith each Man bearing armes shall repair to the coulers (col- 
ors), which shall be lodged at ye Chief Magistrates Howse in each Plan- 
tation, as he will answer at his perill." As is well known, the danger of 
hostile acts was feared from the Indians and from the Dutch, then oc- 
cupying Manhattan. 

It was also ordered, that the "Particular Courts, consisting of Magis- 
trates and Jurors shall be holden on the first Tuesday of each month- 
and one Courte to be held at Newport, the other at Portsmouth ; and the 
sayd Court shall have full powre to judge and determine all such cases 
and actions as shall be presented." 

As students of civil government lay great stress upon the judicial 
functions of a state it is well to say that, at the outset of the Aquidneck 
planting, a Judge was the Chief Magistrate, fulfilling both civil and judi- 
cial functions, holding sessions of the Court, at least monthly. Later 
Quarterly Courts were established and three Elders or Aldermen were 
added to the Court and Magistracy. After the union of Portsmouth and 
Newport, under one general government, the judiciary system was revised 
and trial by jury instituted. The magistrates of each town had authority 
to call a Court, every first Tuesday of each month at Newport and every 
first Thursday of each month at Portsmouth, wherein actions might be 
entered, juries empannelled and causes tried, provided it was not "in the 
matter of life and limb." An appeal could be taken from the lower or 
town Court to the Court of Quarter Sessions, held upon the four Quarter 
Days, which were the first Tuesday in July and the first Tuesday in Jan- 
uary, the Wednesday after the 12th of March and the Wednesday after 
the I2th of October. The last two were styled Parliamentary or General 
Courts. The Judges of these several Courts followed the precepts of 
the English Common Law and all writs and processes were accordincr to 
English practise. " 

Two other important orders issued from the General Court held 
at Portsmouth, August 6th, 1640. One related to the organization equip- 
ment and training of the militia or Train Bands of the two towris with 
exemptions and penalties prescribed. This order provided for'ei-ht 
musters in each Plantation of one day each "to attend their coulers \v 
eight of the clock in the morning" and "openlie in the field be exercised 
by their Commanders and Officers." In addition to the eight town drills 
each year, two General Musters were held, "one to be disciplined at New- 
port, the other at Portsmouth." 

The second order, perhaps first in importance, related to town and 
Colony treasuries to the end, "that each town shall have a joynt and an 
equal supply of the Money in the Treasury for the necessary uses of 



314 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

the same," the Governor, Deputy Governor and one Assistant from each 
town being named to warrant the receipts and expenditures "according to 
the determination of the Major Vote of the Townsmen." These two 
general orders provided for the financial affairs of towns and Colony 
and for the protection of the people by a disciplined militia, — both the 
sinews of Peace and War. 

Rhode Island on Aquidneck, A Commonwealth. 
The union of the two towns, Portsmouth and Newport, in 1640, pre- 
pared the way for the final act in the Declaration of Rights of a Colonial 
state. At the General Court of Election began and held at Portsmouth, 
from the i6th to the 19th of March, 1641, the two towns being assembled, 
enacted as follows : 

A Democr^\tic State. 
"It is ordered and unanimously agreed upon, that the Govern- 
ment WHICH THIS BODIE POLITICK DOTH ATTEND UNTO IN THIS ISLAND, 

AND THE Jurisdiction thereof, in favour of our Prince is a DEM- 
OCRACIE, OR Popular Government; that is to say. It is in the 
Powre of the Body of Freemen orderly assembled, or the major 

PART OF them, to MAKE OR CONSTITUTE JuST LaWS, BY WHICH THEY 
WILL BE REGULATED, AND TO DEPUTE FROM AMONG THEMSELVES SUCH MIN- 
ISTERS AS SHALL SEE THEM FAITHFULLY EXECUTED BETWEEN MaN AND' 

Man." 

• Religious Liberty. 

"It was further ordered by the authority of this present 
Courte, that none bee accounted a Delinquent for Doctrine: Pro- 
vided, IT be not directly repugnant to ye Government or Lawes 
established." 

The State Seal. 

"It is ordered that a Manuel Seal shall be provided for the 
State, and that the Signett or Engr-wing thereof, shall be a 
Sheafe of Arrows bound up, and in the Liess or Bond, this motto 

indented: 

"Amor Vincet Omnia." 
Land Tenure on Aquethneck. 
// is Ordered. Established and Decreed, umnimouslie, that all men's 
Proprieties in their Lands of the Island, and the Jurisdiction thereof, 
shall be such, and soe free, that neyth^r the State nor any Person or Per- 
sons shall intrude into it, molest him in itt, to deprive him of anything, 
zvhatsoever that is, or shall be ztnthin that or any of the bounds thereof; 
and that this Tenure and Propriety of his therein shall be continued to 
him or his: or to zvhomsoever he shall assign it for Ever. 

The election of officers at this General Court, 1641, resulted as 
follows: 



COLONY OF RHODE ISLAND ON AQUIDNECK 315 

Governor, William Coddington. 
Deputy Governor, William Brenton. 

r John Coggeshall, 

. . ! Robert Harding, 

Assistants, J „..,,• t, . 

I William Baulston, 

I John Porter. 

Secretary, William Dyer. 

_, ( William Baulston, 

Ireasurers, < ,-, , t n- 

Robert jeoffreys. 



( Tl 
Sergeants, -^ 



Thomas Gorton, 
enry Bull. 

^ , ., ( Thomas Cornell, 
Constables, < .^ _. , 

1 Henry Bishop. 

The several acts of the Portsmouth General Court, March, 1641, 
were the final Declaration of a Democracy in civil afTairs with religious 
liberty in matters spiritual in the Colony of Rhode Island on Aquidneck. 
The mind of a master Statesman must have dictated the two orders that 
declared the principles of the founders of the two towns, parties to the 
compact. In this brief instrument of less than a hundred words is 
embodied the principle of Popular Sovereignty, the doctrine of the Su- 
premacy of Just Laws and the allegiance of the people to the Magistrates. 
chosen by the major vote of the electorate. 

Still further, no person could be called to judgment in matters of 
religious faith, doctrine or practise, unless such practise should be repug- 
nant to the laws or government of the State. 

We have already seen that the doctrines of civil and religious free- 
dom had been under debate for centuries before the Pilgrims crossed the 
Atlantic and that great minds had declared and great souls had, in the 
face of persecution and physical death, testified to their faith in the rights 
of man. Colonial life in America had for years experimented with certain 
features of individual and civic freedom, but it was given to a great body 
of men and women, founders of the Colony of Rhode Island on Aquid- 
neck, setting small estimate on doctrinal polemics and erratic leadership, 
with profound convictions and clear vision, to found a Colonial Common- 
wealth, dedicated to civil and soul liberty, thereby establishing the first 
state in the world with institutions, laws and administration in harmony 
with the principles of Justice, Equality and Fraternity among men. To 
give emphasis to this great transaction, the Decree of a Free State was 



3i6 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

adopted unanimously, and sealed with the most fitting motto, "Amor 
Vincct Omnia, — Loz'c Will Conquer All Things." 

On the i/th of September, 1641, at Newport, the General Court of 
Freemen ordered that "if any Person or Persons on the Island, whether 
Freemen or Inhabitant, shall by any means, open or covert, endeavor to 
bring in any other Powre than what is now established (except it be by 
our Prince by Lawfull commission), shall be accounted a delinquent under 
the head of Perjurie." 

"It is ordered that the Law of the last Court made concerning Lib- 
ertie of Conscience in Doctrine is perpetuated." 

A Free School in 1640. 

In testimony to the intelligence and farsighted policy of the found- 
ers of the Colony, permanent provision was made for education by setting 
apart public lands, building school houses and providing land and salary 
for a teacher. Mr. Robert Lenthall taught the free school in Newport 
from 1640 to 1642. 

In furtherance of the purpose of the founders to procure a Royal 
Patent "for this Island and Islands, and the lands adjacent," it was voted, 
at a meeting of The General Court of the Colony, held at Newport, Sep- 
tember 19, 1642, "to draw up Petition or Petitions, and to send letter or 
letters for the same end to Sir Henry Vane," and a Committee was ap- 
pointed for the transaction of the business consisting of Gov. Codding- 
ton. Deputy Gov. Brenton, the Assistants, Messrs. Easton, Coggeshall, 
Porter and Baulston. William Dyer, Capt. Jeoffreys, Capt. Harding and 
Mr. John Clarke. The subject of a Royal Patent for the Island was first 
acted on by the Freemen of Newport on December 17th, 1639, the first 
year of the town. The Colony of Rhode Island on Aquidneck now affirms 
its purpose to secure a Patent, independent of any other community or 
plantation and appoints its chief officers a Committee to transact the 
business at the expense of the Colony. Rev. Dr. Adlam, a Baptist min- 
ister of the John Clarke Memorial Church of Newport, in an address 
before the Newport Historical Society, Jan. 19, 1871, well interprets the 
minds of the Founders as to a Patent for Aquidneck. He said, "It is 
evident that those who first settled Newport and Portsmouth did not in- 
tend to join themselves with any other community, but wished to be alone; 
to form their own government, pass their own laws, and, unimpeded, 
manage their own affairs ; for they wished the charter to embrace only 
the Island. 

That they meant to be independent of all others, we have the direct 
testimony of Dr. Clarke; for when he went to Plymouth to ascertain if 
Aquidneck fell within their Patent, he said to the authorities of that 
place, that they were resolved, through the help of Christ, to get clear 



COLONY OF RHODE ISLAND ON AQUIDNECK 317 

of all, and be of ourselves. Tliey had no more intention of incorporating 
themselves with Roger Williams and his settlement than they had of 
incorporating themselves with Plymouth or Massachusetts. There was 
no community, indeed, that fully harmonized with them. Their aim was 
to found a state where Liberty should be seen to be consistent with the 
reign of Law. 

Under date of March 13, 1644, the Freemen of the Colony, in Gen- 
eral Court assembled at Newport, ordered "that the Island commonly 
called Aauidneck. shall be from henceforth called the Isle of Rhodes, or 
Rhode Island." 

We find on the Island of Aquidneck (Rhode Island) a full-fledged 
Democratic State, in the year 1641. Two towns, Portsmouth and New- 
port, constitute the "State." The freemen have elected a Governor, a 
Deputy Governor, Assistant, a Secretary, a Treasurer, Sergeants and 
Constables. Tlie freemen have unanimously agreed on the order and 
authority — the governing bodies and the methods of making and e.xecuting 
"Just Lawes." They have provided "Quarter Session Courts," and in- 
ferior courts as well as "A General Court," or "General Assembly." A 
State Treasury has been created. "Traine Bands" are established for 
military protection, "Libcrtie of Conscience in point of Doctrine is per- 
petuated," and "It is ordered, that if any Person or Persons on the Island, 
whether freemen or inhabitant, shall l.)y any means open or covet, en- 
deavor to bring in any other Powre than what is now established (except 
it be from our Prince by Law full commission) shall be accounted a 
delinquent under the head of Perjurie." In the fulfilment of Colonial 
authority, the General Court, in Sept. 17, 1641, meeting at Newport, 
passed laws relating to the killing of deer on the Island, to Indian depre- 
dations, to the militia of the Colony, the freeman's oath, military train- 
ing, price of Indian corn per bushel, a general pardon of all offenders 
and order as to the General Treasurer's accounts. This Colonial govern- 
ment begim March 12, 1640, with William Coddington as Governor and 
William Brenton Deputy Governor, continued by annual elections and 
legislation until May 19, 1647, when it was superseded by the Patent ob- 
tained by Mr. Williams, in London in 1644, under the title of "Providence 
Plantations in Narragansctt Bay." 

On September 17th, 1644. Mr. Williams arrived in Boston with a 
paper styled "A Charter of Incorporation for Providence Plantations in 
the Narragansctt Bay in Nczv England." Tlie instrument is signed by 
Robert, Earl of Warwick as Governor in Chief, followed by the names 
of several Colonial Commissioners, among which is the name of H. Vane. 
Reference is made to the towns of Providence, Portsmouth and Newport, 
hut no mention is made of the Colony of Rhode Island on Aquidneck. 



3i8 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

The chief guaranty is civil government similar and in no respect differing 
in rights and privileges to the provisions of the Charters of Plymouth, 
Massachusetts Bay and other Colonies. No reference is made to religious 
liberty, .nor to Indian land titles, but "Laws, Constitutions and Punish- 
ments for the Civil Government of the said Plantations must be conform- 
able to the Laws of England, so far as the Nature and Constitution of 
the place will admit." Mr. Williams' Charter was received with rejoic- 
ing at Providence but was universally repudiated by the settlers of Aquid- 
neck. Mr. Williams had ignored the large Plantations on Rhode Island 
with five times the population and wealth of Providence and had assumed 
to secure a charter with authority over Portsmouth and Newport with- 
out the consent or knowledge of the inhabitants of the Island. Still more, 
he had attached the name Prozndcncc Plantations to the three settlements, 
when, as yet. Providence had no organized government, the community 
being merely a congeries of families, with no recognized leader or head, 
and no magistracy of any sort. Richman properly calls the Providence 
Plantations, at this time, a "non-entity," and it is difficult to understand 
how Sir Henry Vance could endorse the charter of Providence Planta- 
tions, knowing well, as he did, the history of the Island towns and send- 
ing by Mr. Roger Williams as bearer, the scathing letter of reproof to 
Providence for "such headiness, tumults, disorders and injustice." One 
would not be surprised if Mr. Williams suggested the letter, and Mr. 
Henry C. Dorr credits him with doing so. 

Governor Coddington, Chief Magistrate of the Island towns, opposed 
the acceptance of the Williams' charter, in which he was supported by the 
majority of the electorate. Dr. Clarke, while recognizing Mr. Williams' 
"headiness" in securing a charter without the authority of the great body 
of the people, whom' it was supposed to benefit, was more favorable to its 
acceptance, and, after three years' delay, during which time no action 
was taken under it, a General Court of Election was held at Portsmouth. 
Alay 19-21. 1647. "It was agreed that all should set their hands to an 
engagement to the charter," an achievement of Dr. Charke's diplomatic 
and conciliatory spirit. It was also agreed that Warwick should have the 
same privileges as Providence. Thus the four towns, Portsmouth, New- 
port, Providence and Warwick came, by the consent of all, to be the 
Colony of Providence Plant-a.tions. 

The officers elected were: 

President, John Coggeshall. 

r Roger Williams, Providence. 
I John San ford, Portsmouth. 
Assistants, j ^yjijij^^ Coddington, Newport. 

I Randall Holden, Warwick. 



COLONY OF RHODE ISLAND ON AQUIDNECK 319 

General Recorder, William Dyer. 
Treasurer, Jeremy Clarke. 

It was ordered that an anchor be the seal of the Colony. 

It was also voted that a tax of £100 be levied to pay Mr. Williams' 
expenses for obtaining the charter, — £50 from Newport, £30 from Ports- 
mouth and £20 from Providence, indicating by the relative amounts ap- 
portioned the towns, that Providence had one-fifth the financial ability 
of the Island towns. 

The great act of this first session of the General Assembly of the 
Colony at Newport was the adoption of the first General Code of Laws 
for the Colony, which had been drawn up at Newport and sent to the 
several towns for examination. Judge Staples, in the Annals of the 
Town of Providence, assumes that the Code was drawn at Newport, and 
that this is referred to in the request of the Committee as "the model that 
hath been lately shown unto us by our worthy friends of the Island." 
Governor Arnold clearly states that this Code was prepared by the men 
of learning on the Island. As Gov. Coddington did not favor the adop- 
tion of the Charter, and would not accept the Presidency under it, it is 
fair to conclude that the Code was not his work. It is safe to assume 
that Dr. John Clarke, the scholar, was its author, aided possibly by the 
able Secretary of the Rhode Island Colony, Mr. William Dyer. 

The Laws, codified from English Common Law, were introduced by 
a Preamble as to Civil and Religious Liberty, and their tenure suspiciously 
suggests their author. 

It is -agreed by this Present Assembly thus L\corpor..\te, and 
BY THIS Present Act Declared, that the Forme of Government 
Established in Providence Plant.\tions is DEMOCRATICALL; 
th.\t is to say, a Government Held by ye Free and Voluntarie Con- 
sent OF ALL, OR THE GREATER PaRTE OF THE FrEE INHABITANTS. 

The Next Order Guarantees "Each Man's Peaceable and 
Quiett Enjoyment of His Right and Libertie, notwithstanding 
Our Different Consciences, Touching the Truth as it is in Jesus." 

The towns of Newport and Portsmouth were entrusted with the duty 
of perfecting the means of enforcing the Code and the manner and time 
of organizing monthly and quarterly Courts. The trading posts in the 
Narragansett Country were assigned to Newport, and that on Prudence 
to Portsmouth. 

This remarkable Code, emanated from the Island towns and as Gov- 
ernor Arnold states, the principles, — Democracy and religious freedom, — 
were "exclusively Rhode Island (Afjuidneck) doctrines and to her belongs 
the credit of them both." The following remarkable testimony as to the 



320 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

Aquidneck Code is also from the pen of our Rhode Island historian, Gov. 
Arnold. "We hazard little in saying that the digest of 1647. for sim- 
plicit}' of diction, unencumbered as it is by the superfluous verbiage that 
clothes our modem statutes in learned obscurity ; for breadth of compre- 
hension, embracing as it does the foundation of the whole body of law, 
on every subject, which has since been adopted; and for vigor, and origi- 
nality of thought and boldness of expression, as well as for the vast 
significance and the brilliant triumph of the principles it embodies, pre- 
sents a model of legislation which has never been surpassed." Arnold's 
History- of Rhode Island, Vol. I, p. 206. 

There is one article in this Code that reflects and expresses most 
completely the delicate regard of the founders of the Island towns for 
the consciences as well as the conscience liberty of their fellows, and an- 
ticipating by several years the advent of the Quakers. "Forasmuch as 
the consciences of sundry men, truly conscionable, may- scruple the giving 
or taking an oath, and it would be noways suitable to the nature and con- 
stitution of our place (who professeth ourselves to be men of different 
consciences, and not one willing to force another ) to Debar such as can- 
not do so, eyther from bearing office amongst us, or from giving in testi- 
mony in a case depending," it was enacted that an affirmation before a 
Judge of Record should be accounted of as full force as an oath, so sen- 
sitive was the Aquidneck legislators even to anticipating conditions not 
then existant. 

The Code is to be found in Vol. I, Rhode Island Colonial Records, 
pages 156-208, inclusive. In its text as well as in its preamble it con- 
firms and maintains the rights of the people in religious concerns, as did 
all subsequent legislation under the charter. 

It is certain that no body of persons in our American Colonial life 
put the doctrine of religious toleration to so severe a test as did the dis- 
ciples of George Fox, known by the name of Friends or Quakers. As 
Newport was well known to them as a place of religious freedom, this 
town became their City of Refuge, on this side the Atlantic. Hither, in 
1653. came the Quaker-Pilgrim Mayflower, a little vessel, named the 
Woodhouse, built by an English Quaker, manned by Quakers, with a 
cargo of English Quakers, thirteen in all, two landing in New York and 
eleven in Newport. They were cordially welcomed to the Island, and 
were treated fraternally in both towns. Their doctrines and conduct 
were so acceptable to the people that many converts were made from 
among the most influential, intelligent and wealthy people of the Island. 
Governor Coddington, his son William, William Brenton, Nicholas East- 
on. John Cranston, Henry Bull, Walter Clarke, John Easton, Caleb Carr, 
William Wanton. John Wanton, — all of whom were afterwards Cover- 



COLONY OF RHODE ISLAND ON AQUIDNECK 321 

nors of Rhode Island, — became the disciples of George Fox and admin- 
istered the government of the Colony, as far as the executive functions 
allowed, according to the civic principles of their faith. Mary Dyer, wife 
of William Dyer, the Secretary of the Colony for ten years, was among 
the many women who adopted the doctrines of the Friends, and was 
hung therefor on Boston Common, in 1660, for what Gov. Endicott and 
the Bay Colony regarded "pernicious and dangerous doctrine." When 
George Fox came to New England in 1671 he made Newport his head- 
quarters and the first Friends' Meeting in New England was established 
by him, in Portsmouth, in the vicinity of the original town site of Pocasset, 
of 1638. 

It is noteworthy that the original Colony of Rhode Island, 1640, was 
the only part of New England that extended the hand of welcome and 
friendship to the Quakers, and the only one in which they came into 
political control, holding it practically for nearly a century, the last 
Quaker Governor being Stephen Hopkins, who was also a member of The 
Continental Congress and a signer of The Declaration of Independence. 
The attitude of other Colonies and leading individuals was hostile to the 
Friends even unto their death. Roger Williams, in his polemic passion, 
wrote, "I have therefore publicly declared myself, that a due and moderate 
restraint, and punishing of these incivilities (of the Quakers), (though 
pretending conscience), is so far from persecution (properly so called), 
that it is a duty and command of God unto all mankind, first in families, 
and thence into all human societies." Plymouth and Connecticut exercised 
a "moderate restraint" of the Quakers by whippings and banishment, 
while Massachusetts Bay Colony punished Quaker "incivilities" by scourg- 
ings, branding, torturing, cutting off of ears and public executions by 
hangings on Boston Common. 

In 1657, the Commissioners of the United Colonies of New England, 
in session at Boston, unanimously adopted a letter to the Colony of Rhode 
Island, on information that "divers Quakers are arrived this summer at 
Rhode Island (Newport) and entertained there, which may prove dan- 
gerous to the Collonies," and requesting "that you remove those Quakers 
that have been receaved, and for the future prohibite theire cominge 
amongst you." President Benedict Arnold, a non-Quaker, replied, say- 
ing among other things, "And as concerning these Quakers (so-called), 
which are now among us, we have no law among us whereby to punish any 
for only declaring by words, &c., their mindes and understandings con- 
cerning the things and ways of God as to salvation and an eternal condi- 
tion." President Arnold promised to bring the letter before the General 
Assembly at its next meeting in March, 1658, at Portsmouth. 

The General Assembly meeting on the Island, in 1658, returned a 
reply to the Commissioners in which they recited the ancient principle of 
R 1—21 



322 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

religious liberty as the foundation of the Colony, as follows : "Now, 
whereas freedom of different consciences, to be protected from inforce- 
ments was the principle ground of our charter, both with respect to our 
humble suit for it, and also to the true intent of the Honorable and re- 
nowned Parleiment of England in grantinge of the same unto us; which 
freedom we still prize as the greatest happiness that men can possess in 
this world." The letter asserts also the supremacy of the civil law and 
magistracy, to both of which Quakers with all other inhabitants are 
amenable, insisting that "theire may be noe damadge, or infringement of 
that chiefe principle in our charter concerninge freedome of consciences." 
This letter to the Commissioners is a splendid illustration of courteous 
diplomacy and is signed by John San ford, Clerk of the Assembly. 

Before taking leave of the early Colonial Records, we must note the 
date of Incorporation of Providence in a town government, under date 
March 14. i648-'i64i9. On the petition of the freemen of the town of 
Providence for "freedome and libertie to incorporate themselves into a 
body politicks," the General Assembly conferred unto "the free inhabit- 
ants of the town of Providence, * * * ^ fj-ee and absolute charter 
of civill incorporation and government, to be known by the Incorporation 
of Providence Plantation in the Narragansett Bay, in New England, to- 
gether with full power and authoritie to governe and rule themselves and 
such others as shall hereafter inhabit within anypart of said Plantation, 
by such a form of civill government as by voluntary consent of all, or the 
greater part of them, shall be found most suitable unto their state and 
condition." The order for a charter was signed by John Warner of 
Warwick, Clerk of the Assembly. 




CHAPTER XVIII 



THE COLONY OF PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS IN 
NARRAGANSETT BAY 



CHAPTER XVIII. 
THE COLONY OF PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS IN NARRA- 

GANSETT BAY. 

Roger Williams left Providence, on his self-imposed mission to Eng- 
land, in the autumn of 1643, on an errand unknown to the Rhode Island 
Colony on Aquidneck. In 1640 this colony had chosen a committee, con- 
sisting of Governor Coddington or John Clarke and eight others, to secure 
a patent from the Aquidneck settlements and to secure the assistance of 
Sir Harry Vane in aid of that end. Mr. Williams knew of the efforts of 
the southern colony and proceeded, at his own venture, to forestall the 
Newport plan. In that purpose Mr. Williams was successful and in Sep- 
tember, 1644, he returned to Providence with a patent of "Providence 
Plantations in Narragansett Bay in New England," signed by eleven of 
the seventeen Royal Commissioners, one of whom was Sir Harry Vane, 
the friend of the colony on the island. Mr. Williams returned to Provi- 
dence by way of Boston and was received with great rejoicings in his 
home town. Not so at Newport, where it was difficult to restrain the 
angry passions of considerate men for what they considered a violation of 
all principles of civil comity and justice. Three years elapsed before this 
act of usurpation of rights and authority was in a measure condemned, and 
local conditions compelled the acceptance of the Williams patent of 1644 
by the two towns at the lower end of the bay. Governor Coddington 
never accepted the Williams patent for two reasons — he was not in love 
with the disorderly doings at Providence and naturally resented the usur- 
pation of the colonial functions and orderly government on the island by 
the William coterie at Providence. It seemed to him an illustration of the 
old adage, "The tail wags the dog." Although unanimously elected to the 
office of an assistant at the first election of the Providence Plantations' 
General Assembly, held at Portsmouth, May, 1647, and was chosen Gov- 
ernor the following year, Mr. Coddington refused to serve at both elec- 
tions, and never accepted an office under the rule of the "Plantations." 

The first General Assembly, held under the new colonial patent, met 
at Portsmouth, on Aquidneck. May 19, 1647, and continued in session 
three days. It was styled "The General Court for the Colonic and Prov- 
ince of Providence," and was called to include the three towns, Newport, 
Portsmouth and Providence, named in the patent as the colonial towns. 
Mr. John Coggeshall. of Newport, representing the largest town, was 
chosen moderator. It was a Democratic Assembly and it was found, on 
a roll-call and vote, that a majority of the freemen of the three towns 



326 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

were present or represented. Providence sent Gregory Dexter, William 
W'ickenden, Thomas Olney. Robert Williams, Richard Waterman, Roger 
Williams, William Field. Jolm Greene, John Smith and John Lippitt, 
giving instructions as to their acts as legislators and "committing you 
unto the protection of the Almighty, wishing you a comfortable voyage, 
a happy success and a safe return unto us again." A quorum was fixed 
at forty members. All took their engagement under the patent or char- 
ter. They agreed "to receive and be governed by the laws of England, 
together with the way of Administration of them so far as the nature and 
Constitution of the Plantation will admit." A "modell" of general laws 
for the whole colony had been drawn up "by our worthy Friends of the 
Island," and the Providence delegation was instructed to support it as 
the code of laws for the colony. The Assembly adopted this code and 
ordered a copy to be sent to each town for its consideration, -adoption or 
amendment by the towns before the next meeting of the General Court. 
By vote, the town of Warwick was added to the colony. It was voted 
that "the General Court of Tryal" should be held at Newport on the 
second Tuesday of June, next ensuing. At the election of colonial 
officers, the following persons were chosen : President, John Coggeshall, 
of Newport. Assistants, Roger Williams, of Providence ; John Sanford, 
of Portsmouth; William Coddington, of Newport; Randall Holden, of 
Warwick. General Recorder, William Dyre ; Treasurer, Jeremy Oarke — 
both of Newport. 

It was ordered that all general bills for legislation by the General 
Court, originating in the tovras, should be considered by all the towns 
and approved by a majority before their presentation to the Court. Still 
further, a committee of six from each town, tvventy-four in all, must see 
to it that a major part of the colony concurred before such bill was con- 
sidered by the General Court and by it ratified as a law. In the case of 
bills originating in the General Court, such bills, after debate, were re- 
ferred to the towns for consideration; if approved by a majority of the 
voters of the towns, the bill became a law till the next Assembly should 
confirm or nullify it. Here we have the initiative and referendum, origi- 
nating in legislation in Rhode Island, in 1647. 

It was ordered that the General Court of Election should be held 
annually on the first Tuesday after the 15th of May, "if wind and weather 
hinder not." The "General Court of Tryall" (Supreme Court of the 
colony), of which the President of the colony was Giief Justice, was 
ordered to meet immediately, on the adjournment of the General Court 
(Assembly). 

Each town was ordered to choose two surveyors of highways, who 
should fix the time for mending roads, also keep a record of all cattle 
exported from the town. Any person exporting cattle without notice to 



PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS 327 

the surveyors should forfeit the cattle or their value. The following 
orders were adopted: Forms for the engagement of colonial officers; the 
town councils of Newport and Portsmouth shall decide as to monthly and 
quarterly courts ; towns were to choose men to superintend the killing of 
goats and swine, to prevent dishonest slaughter ; John Cooke and Thomas 
Brownell were chosen water-bailiffs for the colony ; "the scale of the 
Province shall be an anchor ;" town councils should consist of six men ; 
the sea-laws, "called the Lawes of Oleron," shall be in force for the benefit 
of seamen upon the island ; no person should leave the Assembly without 
consent, and, if allowed to go, should leave his proxy ; "as Mr. Roger 
Williams hath taken great paines and expended much tyme in the obtajTi- 
inge of the charter, for this Province, of Noble Lords and Governors," 
it was ordered to grant Mr. Williams one hundred pounds — Newport to 
pay fifty, Portsmouth thirty and Providence, including Warwick, twenty, 
in proportion to ability and numbers ; Newport was charged with care of 
trading houses in the Narragansett country, Portsmouth with Prudence, 
and Pawtuxet was left to the choice of Providence or Newport ; freedom 
was granted the free inhabitants of the Province to erect an x-Vrtillery 
Garden "to advance the Art Militan,- (this is the first legislation in any 
American colony relating to a school for military training) ; the Dutch, 
French and other aliens were forbidden to trade with the Indians in the 
Province ; laws were made as to train-bands in all the details of military 
matters ; the sale of gims and ammunition to the Indians was forbidden, 
and a code of laws was enacted for the government of the Province. A 
review of this code and the public administration of justice under it will 
be given in the judicial history of Rhode Island, to which reference is 
made. 

It was ordered that the General officers write to Massachusetts and 
to Pawtuxet people, proposing a union with this colony. 

Provisions were made for eight general training days, each year, with 
full instructions as to officers, men, ammunition, arms, forfeitures, etc.. 
etc. "Every inhabitant of the Island above sixteen or under sixty yeares 
of age, shall always be provided of a Musket, one pound of powder, 
twenty bullets, and two fadom of Match, with sword, rest, bandaleers, all 
completely furnished." The President of the colony, the four Assistants 
and the captain of each town band or company constituted a council of 
war. An alarm of danger was given by "three Muskets distinctly dis- 
charged, and a Herald appointed to go speedilie threw the towne, and 
crie. Alarum! Alarum I and the drum to beat incessantly." 

An act provided severe penalties for selling, giving, delivering or in 
any way "conveying any powder, shott, lead, gunn, pistoll, sword, dagger, 
halberd or pike to the Indians that are or may prove offensive to this 
Colonic." 



328 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

A form for the engagement of the General officers was adopted, and, 
what was quite unusual, a reciprocal engagement was drawn, by which 
the inhabitants of the plantations "do hereby engage ourselves to the 
utmost of our power to support and uphold you in your faithful perform- 
ance thereof." 

We can readily understand how so much business was transacted, 
May 19, 20 and 21, 1647, when we remember that the law-makers worked 
from eight o'clock in the morning till six at night, with an hour for dinner. 
The colony of Providence Plantations certainly starts well, with a 
body of excellent laws and acts, inspired by the spirit of honesty, purity 
and loyalty. 

A digest of the tirst formal code of laws will be found under the 
chapter under The Judiciary. The author was a member of the Rhode 
Island colony of Aquidneck and was either Governor Coddington or Dr. 
John Clarke, with the probabilities favoring Dr. Clarke. Governor Cod- 
dington was so strongly opposed to the acceptance of the Williams patent, 
that it is difficult to believe that he would set himself to the task of fram- 
ing a code for the colony of Providence Plantations. Dr. Clarke was 
educated far in advance of the Governor, had a judicial mind and temper, 
and finally endorsed the new patent : it is more than probable that he con- 
structed the code from existing English law treatises. 

The preamble to the code is a remarkably strong declaration of civil 
and religious liberty and in its definition of democracy relates itself 
directlv to the foundation principles of the island colony adopted March, 
1641. These principles and the engagement are worthy of careful con- 
sideration and comparison with the civil compact of March 7, 1638, at 
the fouixling of Portsmouth. 

On May 16, 1648, the General Court of Election (General Assem- 
bly) met at Providence, electing Nicholas Easton, Moderator; William 
Dyre, Qerk ; Jeremy Clarke, Assistant and Treasurer; William Codding- 
ton, President; Assistants, Roger Williams. William Baulston, John 
Smith; Philip Sherman, Recorder; Alexander Partridge, General Ser- 
geant. 

Orders were enacted as follows: Six men of each town chosen, in 
whom the General Court should continue ; the "Court of Tryal" shall be 
held where the action arose or where the persons were taken ; as Mr. Cod- 
dington did not appear to take the office of President, Jeremy Qarke was 
chosen President ; rules as to time and place of Court sessions were fixed ; 
that each town shall meet to elect town officers within ten days ; that the 
prison at Newport be made the colony prison ; a seal for the colony was 
adopted and a body of rules for the well ordering of the General Assembly. 
In March, 1649, the General Assembly met at Warwick. A charter 
was granted for the freemen of the town of Providence to incorporate 



PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS 329 

themselves into a body politic. Under the power conferred by this charter 
the first civil government was ordained and established at Providence. 

In 1649 the General Court of Election was held at Warwick, when 
general colonial officers were chosen. John Smith, of Warwick, was 
chosen President; Assistants, Thomas Olney, John Sanford, John Clarke, 
Samuel Gorton ; John Clarke, General Treasurer, holding office till the 
separation of the towns in 1651. Orders were adopted as to the correc- 
tion of corrupt voting, fixing English values to Indian peag, fixing a fine 
of ten pounds to the man who shall refuse after election to take the ofiice 
of President of the colony, and five pounds for a refusal to act as an 
Assistant ; laws concerning military officers were passed, letters were 
ordered sent "to Benedict Arnold and his father, and the rest of Patuxit. 
aboute thear subjectinge to this Collonie ;" an order that each town should 
"provide a prison with a chimney ;" it was granted "unto Mr. Roger Wil- 
liams to have leave to sufTer a native (Indian), his hyered household 
servant to kill fowls for him in his piece at Narragansett about his house." 
Also "it was granted unto Mr. Roger Williams to have leave to sell a 
little wine or stronger water to some natives in theare sicknesse." 

The fourth General Court of Election, the last before the Separ.\- 
TioN, took place at Newport, May 23, 1650. Nicholas Easton, of New- 
port, was chosen Moderator and President. William Field, of Provi- 
dence, John Porter, of Portsmouth, John Clarke, of Newport, and John 
Wickes, of Warwick, were chosen Assistants ; John Clarke, General 
Treasurer ; Philip Sherman, General Recorder, and Richard Knight, Gen- 
eral Sergeant. John Clarke, General Treasurer, reported for the year 
1649 that he had received nothing as Treasurer and therefore had no 
money in his hands. Additional rules were made to govern the courts. 
Each town was ordered to have a magazine for defence ; Providence must 
have "one barrel! of good powder, five hundred pounds of lead, six pikes 
and six muskets all in good care and fit for service ;" Portsmouth must 
have double and Newport treble the Providence armory, while Warwick 
had the same as Providence. From the ratio of supplies of the magazines, 
we conclude that the population of the island towns was five times that of 
Providence and that Providence and Warwick were equals in inhabitants 
in 1650. 

The office of Attorney-General was created at this session and Wil- 
liam Dyre, of Newport, was chosen as the first to fill that office in Rhode 
Island. Hugh Bewitt was chosen General Solicitor. The last act of this 
General Assembly declared "a severe judgment according to the judgment 
of his peers" against any person that "shall speake wordes of disgrace con- 
temptuously undervaluing of that Honored State of England." "FFINIS" 
is written in capital letters at the end of this act, and the curtain is rung 
down on "the Providence Plantations in Narragansett," to be rung up 



330 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

again in May, 1654, after a recess of nearly four years. The Codding- 
ton coup d'etat has separated the island colony from the main and the 
Williams patent is recognized only at Warwick and Providence. 

At the session of the Representatives Assembly, held October 26, 
1650, an order was passed relative to the rules for the Assembly. An- 
other that no person shall at any time be banished from this colony, not- 
withstanding any law on the statute book. x\nother as to arrest of 
strangers, and another constituting adultery the only ground of divorce. 
Owing to the withdrawal of the Aquidneck towns from the Planta- 
tions, the Representative Assembly met at Providence, November 4, 165,1, 
and chose Mr. Williams as their agent to go to England and secure, if 
possible a confirmation of their charters for the two towns at the head of 
the bay and the Assembly voted one hundred pounds to meet his expenses. 
In the meantime, Pl>-mouth and the Bay colony renewed their claim for 
Warwick, and Plymouth was advised to take possession of that planta- 
tion by force, unless the purchasers would willingly submit to that colony. 
At this time, Mr. Coddington had returned from England with a commis- 
sion signed by Judge John Bradshaw, President of the Council of State, 
under the Commonwealth, constituting him Governor of the island towns 
for life, with a council of six men to be named by the people and approved 
by him. This form of government seems to have been suggested by 
Cromwell himself as representing the new colonial policy of the Protector, 
uniting the life tenure of the chief of the colony with a council chosen by 
the people, as representing "the Democraenee" of the island towns. Arnold 
says that great alarm fell over the colony, "especially by the large party in 
the subjected islands, who, being opposed to Coddington, found them- 
selves, as they thought, at the mercy of a dictator." Mr. Arnold does not 
satisfy us in this very general and sweeping statement. Let us see. It is 
well known that with the conversion of Dr. Clarke to the Baptist cere- 
monials, and the founding of the Baptist church of Newport in 1644, of 
which Dr. Garke was chosen minister, a broad line of separation had been 
drawn between him and Governor Coddington. Coddington also was 
known as leaning away from Puritan orthodoxy toward the Quaker prin- 
ciples in religious belief and life. These radical differences were first 
seen in the treatment accorded the Williams patent, Clarke accepting and 
Coddington rejecting, and as each had strong friends the community allied 
itself with one or the other leader, in an orderly fashion. We are at a loss 
to know to what extent sectarian and civil political variations influenced 
the people in their treatment of Governor Coddington on his return from 
England as the Protector's choice for the rulership of the islands. We do 
know that Mr. Coddington was the able and popular leader of the Rhode 
Island colony from the exodus to the time of his departure for England 
in 1649. We also know that he never, for a long period, failed to hold 



PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS 331 

the confidence of the people and was afterwards elected to the Governor- 
ship of the colony, under the Royal Charter, holding the office at the time 
of his death, November i, 1678. 

Rev. John Callendar, in the dedication of his century discourse, 1739, 
delivers a flattering but truthful eulogy on Mr. Coddington, and lets light 
on conditions at Newport, otherwise enveloped in darkness. He says : 
"In 1 65 1 he (Coddington) had a commission from the supreme authority, 
then in England, to be Governor of the island, pursuant to a power re- 
served in the patent; but the people being jealous 'lest the commission 
might affect their lands and hberties as secured to them by the patent,' he 
readily laid it down on the first notice from England that he might do so." 
Still further he says: "If there was any opposition at any time to any of 
his measures, or if he met with any ungrateful returns from any he had 
served, it was no more than what several of the other first excellent Gov- 
ernors of the other New England colonies met with, from a people made 
froward by the circumstances of a wilderness and overjealous of their 
privileges. * * * History abounds with examples of the mistakes 
and ingratitude occasioned by that jealousy. * * * Hg (jjed Governor 
of the colony — in promoting the welfare and the prosperity of the little 
Commonwealth which he had in a manner founded." 

A number of freemen of Aquidneck, 'dissatisfied with the Coddington 
commission sought out Dr. John Clarke as their agent to go to England 
to secure its repeal. Clarke and Williams left the colony about the same 
time, one from Boston, the other from New York, on their separate and 
distinct errands. Both succeeded in their missions. Mr. Williams re- 
turned in July, 1654, and the four towns returned to the government 
under a renewal of the patent of 1644. Dr. Clarke remained in London 
for twelve years, supporting himself by practice as a physician and re- 
turned with the Royal Charter in 1663, after an absence of twelve years. 

Several sessions of the General Assembly were held at Providence, 
Warwick and Pawtuxet between 1650 and May 16, 1654, when the four 
towns were reunited at Newport in a general election and in legislation. 
During this vacation period, John Greene, of Warwick, acted as Secre- 
tary of the Assembly. Samuel Gorton, of Warwick, was President of 
the two towns from October, 16511, to May, 1652; John Smith, of War- 
wick, from May, 1652, to May, 1653, and Gregory Dexter from May, 
1653, to May, 1654. The principal legislation was the limitation of the 
period of negro slavery to ten years, at the end of which term they were 
to be set free, as was the custom with English servants ; the Dutch were 
forbidden to trade with the Indians, as it interfered with the business of 
local traders ; foreigners, Dutch, French or any other nation, were ex- 
cluded, except "by the generall consent of our collonie;" slander of per- 
sons, "the State and Commonweal of England," was made a punishable 



332 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

offense; a letter of instruction, advice and comfort was sent to Mr. Wil- 
liams, in London, in which he was assured, "Your lovinge bedfellow is 
in health and presents her indeered affection." The letter contains the 
suggestion, "that it might tend much to the weighinge of men's mindes, 
and subjectinge of persons who have been refractory, to yield themselves 
over as unto a settled government," for Mr. Williams to secure the posi- 
tion of Governor for one year, "and so the Government to bee honorably 
put upon this place, which might seem to add much weight forever here- 
after in the constant and successive deriguation (direction) of the same." 
This letter was undoubtedly from the heart and pen of Mr. Gregory 
Dexter, of Providence, and a fair interpretation of the passage quoted is 
that if Mr. Williams could secure the commission as Governor from the 
protectorate for a single year, it would secure the seat of colonial govern- 
ment at Providence, with Mr. Williams as the permanent and "constant" 
executive. 

At the meeting of the twelve representatives of Providence and War- 
wick, at Warwick, December 25, 1652, the commissioners of the planta- 
tions took notice of "severall complaints against particulars" in the letter 
to Roger Williams, "contrarie to the liberties and freedom of the free 
people of this Colony and contrarie to the ends for which the sayd Roger 
Williams was sent," and "declared against the same." If this act was, 
as Mr. Richman suggests, a repudiation of the letter as related to the 
governorship of Roger Williams, it was a happy way of mending an ugly 
proposal and put an end to the ambitions of Mr. Williams' friends at 
Providence and confirms the assertion that strong personal and party feel- 
ing existed in Providence for and against Mr. Williams. Gregory Dexter, 
Moderator (Speaker) of the Assembly stated his reasons for the session, 
"That the honour of this Collonie lyeth at stake, to keepe ourselves in 
order and union till the return of our agent from England, that provisions 
be made that wee be not then found in a rout." 

On October 2, 1652, an Order of Council was issued in London re- 
voking the Coddington Commission of Governor of the Island towns and 
directing the towns to reunite under the Patent of 1644. Williams and 
Qarke remained in England and sent William Dyre home with the mes- 
sage to the towns. Mr. Dyre on his arrival at Newport, in February, 
1653, wrote to the Commissioners of Providence and Warwick, naming a 
day when he would meet all of the freemen of the towns at Portsmouth 
to deliver the orders of the Protectorate. Four representatives of Prov- 
idence and Warwick were sent and returned to report that their labors 
were fruitless, for the reason that the Island towns claimed that the 
General Assembly should meet with them for the restoration of the 
Colony, as the towns on Aquidneck formed most of the population and 
wealth of the Colony, while the mainland towns claimed that they were 



PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS 333 

the Colony of Providence Plantations, since the rupture of 165 1. On the 
i8th of March, 1652-3 the town of Newport wrote to "Beloved friends 
and neighbors" of the mainland towns, "for your and our own safetie 
and peaceable well-beinge, and that each may enjoy his owne right and 
equitie, and that the face of authority may be established amongst us," 
inviting all the freemen to meet in General Assembly for Election at New- 
port on the first Tuesday after the 15th of May, 1653. Proposals were 
made as to matters and methods of legislation in the proposed Assembly 
and the letter was sent by Benedict Arnold, formerly of Pawtuxet. On 
May 16 the mainland towns, under the name of the "Collony of Provi- 
dence Plantations" met at Providence and voted that "Wee are therefore 
enforced to keep in the posture we are in," inasmuch as the terms pro- 
posed by either set of towns were not acceptable to the other. 

Pending arrangements for the union of the towns, the general officers 
on Aquidneck, deposed by the Coddington regime, were reinstated and the 
two towns on the Island elected their town officials. Two elections were 
held May 16-17, 1^53. t^^ Island towns chose John Sandford, Sr., as 
President, Nicholas Easton and Robert Borden, Assistants, William 
Lytherland, Recorder, John Coggeshall, Treasurer, and John Easton, 
Attorney General. They re-adopted the Code of Laws of 1647 and gave 
liberty to the mainland towns to choose their own General Assistants. 
The next day some freemen from Providence and Warwick came in and 
chose Thomas Olney as an Assistant for Providence and Randall Holden 
for Warwick. 

Providence chose Gregory Dexter, President, Stukeley Westcott 
and John Sayles, Assistants, John Sayles as Treasurer, John Greene, 
Recorder, and Hugh Bewitt, Sergeant. Orders were passed forbidding 
provisions sent to the Dutch, that each Plantation should prepare for 
defense against the Dutch, that no seizure of Dutch vessels or goods be 
made without orders and that all legal process was to arise in the name 
of the Commonwealth of England, "without a King or House of Lords." 

At the May session of the Assembly at Newport a demand was made 
on Mr. Coddington for the Statute Book and Secretary's records, which 
he refused to give up, as he had had no official order that his commission 
had been withdrawn. This was true, as he never received an order from 
the English Council of State, cancelling his commission. In assuming 
legislation for the four towns, the Assembly on the Island chose eight 
men "for ripening matters that conceme Long Island and in ye case con- 
cerning ye Dutch." This War Board was authorized to carry on an 
offensive and defensive war with the Dutch and "all enemies of the 
Commonwealth of England," including land forces, privateers, etc. Com- 
missions in the name of Providence Plantations were granted to Capt. 



334 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

John Underhill, Mr. William Dyre and Edward Hull to proceed against 
any and all enemies of England and a jury was chosen for the "tryall of 
prizes." To this legislation, embracing a declaration of war, by the 
Island towns, the mainland General Assembly entered its most vigorous 
protest and denial, charging upon the rival legislature an unjustifiable 
assumption of power and threatening the interposition of the home gov- 
ernment and disfranchising Olney and Holden for disloyalty. This action 
of the up-river towns did not hinder the offensive privateering warfare, 
instituted at Newport. Underhill, commanding twenty men, occupied an 
abandoned Dutch fort, Good Hope; Dyre never left his island home, as 
he had lost rank with all parties; Hull interpreted his commission so 
liberally that he captured a French ship, which brought him and the Col- 
ony into a hot dispute with the New England Confederation ; Capt. Bax- 
ter seized a vessel belonging to Barnstable, in Plymouth Colony, as it was 
carrying the goods of an English planter to Oyster Bay. This act brought 
the Colony into a wordy conflict with the United Colonies. Baxter also 
seized a Dutch vessel and was pursued to Fairfield harbor by two other 
Dutch vessels. 

In May, 1654, but one General Assembly for election was held and 
that at Newport. Nicholas Easton of Newport was chosen President; 
Randall Holden, of Warwick, ranking second in votes. Assistants Thomas 
Olney, Richard Borden, Edward Smith, Randall Holden, Joseph Torrey, 
Recorder, John Coggeshall, Treasurer, Capt. John Cranston, Attorney 
General, and Richard Knight, Sergeant. 

As a considerable number of people dissented as to a Colonial union 
of the four towns, a committee of two from each town was named to 
advise "concerninge our dissenting friends." Mr. Williams was named 
as one of the Peace and Union Committee, though he had not yet returned 
from London. 

Four months pass ; "the differences and obstructions amongst ye 
foure Townes of this Collonie of Providence Plantations" are removed, 
and the following agreements adopted by the twenty-four commissioners, 
six from each of the four towns: The transactions of the Island towns 
from the time of separation in 1651 shall remain valid and binding in 
that Jurisdiction; the same to be true as to the Acts of the mainland 
towns in their domain ; the readoption of the charter of 1644 was affirmed 
and, with the exception of the General Election, all affairs such as making 
of laws, etc., should be vested in a legislative commission. The Commis- 
sioners who signed the compact on the 31st of August, 1654. and who 
constituted the first legislative assembly under it were Thomas Harris, 
Gregory Dexter, John Taylor, William Wickenden, John Browne and 
Henry Browne, of Providence, William Baulston, Richard Borden, John 



PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS 335 

Roome, Thomas Cornell, John Briggs, and William Hall, of Portsmouth, 
Benedict Arnold, Richard Tew, John Coggeshall, John Easton, William 
Lytherland, and Thomas Gould, of Newport, John Greene, Senior, Ran- 
dall Holden, Ezekiel Holliman, John Greene, Jun., John Townsend, and 
Richard Townsend, of Warwick. 

We have reached the period when a Colonial government for Rhode 
Island has reached a state of cohesive permanency. The Aquidneck 
platform of 1638-40 has been adopted by the four towns, the principles of 
which are first, popular elections of local and general officers by the whole 
body of freemen, free from money qualifications in the electorate, full 
freedom in all matters of religious faith and worship, and the full recog- 
nition of the rights of the towns as the units of political strength and 
unity. Democracy, involving religious liberty has position and power. 
Clarke, Gorton, Williams and Coddington, Greene, Arnold, Holden and 
Coggeshall, Baulston, Dexter, Tew, Holliman and Harris, once so diver- 
gent, are now so well agreed on the general purposes and methods of a 
civil state, that they join hands and hearts in a new Colonial pact, pledg- 
ing allegiance not as in 1644 to King Charles and the Monarchy, but in 
1654, swearing allegiance to Oliver Cromwell and the Protectorate. One 
principle of the government of 1654 was clearly undemocratic and still 
remains in Rhode Island, a strange survival of an ancient error, — the 
practice of unequal town representation in the General Assembly. In 
1654, Warwick had 38 freemen, Providence 42, Portsmouth 71 and New- 
port 96, — 247 in all. The legislative assembly was composed of 24 mem- 
bers, 6 from each of the four towns. It was not equable for Warwick 
with 38 freemen to have the same representation as Portsmouth with 
nearly twice that number, or for Providence with 42 freemen to have the 
same representation as Newport with twice that number and more. A 
just apportionment of one representative for every 10 freemen and a frac- 
tion would have given Warwick 4, Providence 4, Portsmouth 7, and New- 
port 9. In 1918, West Greenwich, with a total population of 509 has one 
Senator and one Representative, while the city of Providence, with a 
population of 247,600 has only one Senator and but 24 Representatives. 

The town organization, so complete in its mechanism at Portsmouth 
in 1638, and at Newport in 1639, was made possible at Providence by its 
incorporation in 1649, and of Warwick about the same date. Prior to its 
charter, Providence was a Proprietary, in which land holders only pos- 
sessed the right of voting, while Gorton and the other settlers at Shawo- 
met refrained from organization and the whole company took refuge on 
Aquidneck until the recognition of the Patent of 1644 and the reception 
of Warwick to share in its provisions. A fair interpretation of the Rhode 
Island towns would place Portsmouth and Newport in the class of inde- 



336 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

pendent town governments from the dates of their settlement until 1647, 
when they accepted Colonial relations to the English Crown. As neither 
Providence or Warwick had adopted any form of local or civil govern- 
ment they do not belong to this class. The civic situation may be stated 
thus: 

1636-1638. Providence an unorganized squatter settlement on Indian 
lands. 

1638- 1 649. Providence a land Proprietary with no organic govern- 
ment. Incorporated as a town, 1649, under the Royal Patent of 1644, the 
Patent becoming operative on its acceptance by the three towns named in 
it, May, 1647. 

1638-9 to 1647. Portsmouth and Newport, organized two munici- 
palities, independent, cohesive, Colonial; acknowledging and accepting 
Royal authority, under the English Crown, Iilay, 164". 

1643-1649. Warwick, squatter sovereignt>' under Indian land titles 
from Jan. 12, 1643, to incorporation in 1649. accepting supremacy of the 
English Crown in 1647, on admission into the Confederacy of Rhode 
Island towns, under the Williams Patent. 

Each of the four towns when organized exercised an absolutely free 
and unbiased choice of its form of government and expressed in its vari- 
ous operations the individualism of the freemen, the qualifications of 
whom were the expressions of the measure of Democracy of the com- 
munity. The English type of town or parish did not manifest itself in 
Rhode Island where Puritanism and independency with radical individ- 
ualism were most manifest. Each settlement was a law unto itself, or 
proceeded on the laissc:: faire doctrine of opportunism. 

The Commissioners of the four towns held their first meeting at 
Warwick, August 31, 1654, with Benedict Arnold as Moderator and 
William Lytherland, clerk, both of Newport. A Court of Elections for 
the Colony was ordered to be held at Warwick on the 12th of September 
ensuing, — the Court of Commissioners to meet at the same time. It was 
ordered that no liquors should be sold to Indians under a penalty of five 
pounds, that neither French nor Dutch shall trade with Indians in the 
Colony; that each town must build a prison before May, 1655; on com- 
plaint of the violation of the Sabbath as a holy day, because there was no 
day of recreation, each town was ordered to consider and determine 
"what days they shall agree upon for their men-servants, maid-servants 
and children to recreate themselves to prevent the incivilities complained 
of." The final order of this Court required each town to license and 
encourage one or two houses for the entertainment of strangers, and to 
forbid all unlicensed houses from the sale of wine, beer or strong liquors, 
under a penalty of five pounds. 



PROVIDENCE PLAxMTATIONS 337 

At the general election on September 12, 1654, Roger Williams was 
elected President, holding the office three years, with the ablest men of 
the several towns as assistants, commissioners, and other officers as will 
appear by reference to the Colonial records. Mr. Williams and Mr. 
Dexter were asked "to send letters of humble thanksgiving to His High- 
ness the Lord Protector, Sir Harry Vane, Mr. Holland and Mr. John 
Clarke." A census of the freemen of the Colony gave Newport 96, Ports- 
mouth 71, Providence 42 and Wanvick 38 — a total of 247. During Mr. 
Williams' term of office, loyalty to the Protectorate was affirmed and dis- 
loyalty to Cromwell or the Parliament of England forfeited the rights of 
citizenship. 

Taxation for Colonial uses was made subject to the control of the 
Commissioners, while each town was given authority to fix and collect 
town revenues, with penalties for resistance or non-payment of taxes 
assessed. The fees of Colonial Commissioners were fixed at three shill- 
ings a day to be paid by the towns they represented. In case of refusal 
to serve or absence from the Court, he must forfeit the fee and pay a 
fine of six shillings a day. A juryman was allowed a fee of two shillings 
for each case on which he served. Prison building seems to indicate the 
prevalence of criminality. Newport was ordered to build a prison at a 
cost of 80 pounds, Portsmouth to contribute 20 pounds and have a joint 
use of it. Portsmouth was ordered to build a cage and stocks for the 
use of both towns on the Island. Warwick was ordered to build a prison 
to cost 41 pounds, Providence to pay 6 and have joint use, while Provi- 
dence must build "a sufficient cage or prison, sufficient with a paire of 
stocks" for the use of both towns. Special committees raised the funds 
and superintended the work. Whipping posts had been set up and used 
in all the towns and were used well into the nineteenth century, the last 
public punishment by whipping being inflicted on the Parade of the Old 
State House, Providence, July 14, 1837, for horse stealing. Ducking 
stools for common scolds and minor offences were common. Adultery on 
the Island was punishable with fifteen stripes on the bare back at Ports- 
mouth, and after a week's respite, similar punishment at Newport. If 
the crime was committed on the mainland, like measure of whippings 
were given first at Providence and then at Warwick. In addition a fine 
of ten pounds was given. For the second offense, the offender was to 
receive like punishment at all of the four towns and pay a fine of twenty 
pounds. Adultery on the part of husband or wife, was sufficient cause 
of divorce, in a suit before a Colonial or town magistrate upon complaint 
of the offended party. All other grounds of divorce were to be brought 
before the Commissioner's Court, the Supreme Court of the Colony. It 
was ordered that "a notorious swearer and curser" shall first be admon- 

R 1-12 



338 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

ished and if he continued "he shall either sitt in ye stocks two hours or 
pay five shillings." It was ordered that upon the comi^laint of solicita'- 
tions to whoredom or of wanton and lascivious tendings, of the assault 
of a woman for ravishment, the person guilty shall be brought to trial 
or subjected to some moderate corporal punishment. In ca.se of false 
charges, the complainant must suffer punishment. 

A singular case of a mutual agreement of separation of husband and 
wife came before the General Court in June, 1655. John Coggeshall, Jr., 
son of Dea. John Coggeshall, of the First Church, Boston, married Eliz- 
abeth, daughter of William Baulston, June 17, 1647, and she became the 
mother of his three children, John, Elizabeth and William, the last born 
in 1654. On October 3, 1654, they mutually signed an agreement for 
divorce. At this Court in session at Portsmouth, Elizabeth petitioned for 
the libertie of contracting a second marriage, her former husband having 
been granted such liberty at the May session at Providence. The Court 
orders that as "by mutuall and voluntarie consent of both parties, Eliza- 
beth, ye late wife, was absolutely separated from him," and "havinge 
long and mature knowledge of ye case and just grounds of their proceed- 
ings," "equall libertie" be granted her. Mr. Coggeshall married second, 
Patience Throckmorton, age fifteen, who became the mother of nine child- 
ren, she dying in 1676; he then married a third wife, Man.- . who 

gave him four children, — nineteen in all, — nine boys and ten girls. We 
notice here the human productivity of a slight variation of the doctrine 
of polygamy, — a study for modern sociology. 

It was in March, 1656, that Mr. Coddington came before the General 
Assembly and submitted to "ye authoritie of his Highness in this Colonie 
as it is now united, and that with all my heart." He had waited the 
revocation of his commission, which was never formally made, and also 
he had waited until assured that the reunion of the four towns was an 
assured fact and that a stable government had been established in the 
Colony, as free as possible from the various local disturbances current in 
an earlier day. Newport had elected him as first Commissioner in March, 
1656, recognizing in him the ability and fidelity of their first citizen and 
founder. Consciously innocent of all the false charges made at home and 
in London concerning his relations to the Dutch and willing to meet his 
enemies in an open Court, in the tribunal of his peers, he accepts, in a 
courageous spirit and with a magnanimity worthy of his exalted char- 
acter, the post of legislator and judge, in the interests of his island and 
town. He was received by his elect associates in a manner, "composinge 
to ye good and comfort of all parts of ye Colonie, and ye establishing of 
peace and love among us." Coddington's arch enemy, William Dyre, 
had long since lost position in the Colony, and only frequently appears 
in public, and then often to his dishonor. 



PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS 339 

For humanity sweeps onward; 

Where to-day the martyr stands, 
On the morrow crouches Judas, 

With the gold dust in his hands; 
While the hooting mob of yesterday, 

In silent awe returns 
To glean his sacred ashes, 

For history's golden urn. 

While Dyer has gone to defeat, Coddington waits renewed and 
greater honors from a grateful and well-established Colony, founded on 
the imperishable base of the Boston-Aquidneck Settlements. 

The liquor problem was as vexatious in Colonial days as in ours, if 
not so complex and far-reaching. It was the daily habit of most men 
and of some women to drink some kinds of alcoholic beverages. In fact 
many regarded the habit not only as healthful, but as promotive of effi- 
ciency in physical and mental toil. Clergymen drank to give spiritual 
values to their sermons. Lawyers and judges drank to clarify legal 
doubts, farmers drank to lighten heavy toil ; mechanics to add skill to 
workmanship. All drank to cheer lonely hours and enliven the ennui of 
life with the cheer, wit, repartee and song of the social glass. Two great 
evils were apparent in the early Colonial days : One was the insane love 
for "strong water" and the beastly, savage intoxication of the Indians ; 
the other crippling the defensive power of white men in their eternal 
watchfulness of the Indian wiles. In a single year, 1655-6, at Provi- 
dence, 1,000 gallons of rum, brandy, white wines and other alcoholic 
liquors were bought and sold at Providence by Roger Mowry, Henry 
Fowler, John Sayles, Mary Pray, Annie Williams. The next year, 1 656-7 
an equal amount was bought and consumed in Providence, and so the 
purchase, retail and consumption went on from year to year. In 1655, 
the General Court meeting at Providence, a committee of eight men, with 
Captain John Cranston as chairman and Benedict Arnold, Thomas Olney 
and Henry Bull as members, was chosen "to ripen against morninge, some 
way for suppressinge of selling liquers," — the Court to meet at a half 
an hour after sunrise, about seven o'clock A. M. The liquor bill as 
adopted ordered that two ordinaries or taverns be opened in each of the 
four towns and that no others shall sell any sort of strong drink, either 
to English or Indian by retail, that is no less than a gallon to a single 
purchaser, under penalty of a fine of five pounds. 

It was further ordered that the tavern keeper shall not sell to In- 
dians more than a pint of liquor a day to a person. In case the Indian 
should be found drunk, the man who sold him the liquor shall pay a fine 
of 20 shillings and the Indian be fined ten shillings, "or be whipped or 
laide neck and heels." Right-of-search was given to magistrates and tav- 
ern keepers to see what and how much liquor any householder might have. 



340 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

Four shillings a quart was fixed as the value of liquors in the Colony. 
Every person having liquors in his possession was required to make 
return to the Town Clerk that a record might be made. An excise ta.x of 
five shillings per anker (lo gallons) was ordered. Licenses were ord- 
ered to be granted to two ordinaries, or houses of entertainment in each 
town, the houses to be marked by "a convenient signe, at ye most per- 
spicuous place of ye said house." Later it was ordered that no house 
of entertainment should suffer any person to tipple after nine o'clock at 
night. No liquors could be smuggled into any town to avoid the excise 
tax, in penalty of forfeiture of the whole invoice. Excise officers were 
appointed in each town to see that the law was duly executed. In 1661 
it was ordered that it was not lawful for any person to retail wine or 
liquors who did not keep one bed at least and victuals for the entertain- 
ment of strangers and other guests. 

While legislators, legislation and courts of justice constitute the 
mechanism of civil society in the Colony, we are able to look into internal 
conditions of Colonial life in the four towns that constitute the Plantation 
through the medium of important correspondence from the pens of Sir 
Harry \'ane, Oliver Cromwell, Gregory Dexter and Mr. \\'illiams. 

In 165 1 Dr. Clarke, William Dyre and Roger Williams went to 
London, the first two to secure the revocation of the Coddington Com- 
mission, Mr. Williams to make the application of the Charter of 1644 to 
the mainland settlements. Dyre returned the next year to report the 
dissolution of the Coddington government, Mr. Williams remained in 
London until 1654. Writing to Gov. John Winthrop, Jr., of Connecticut, 
he says: "It pleased the Lord to call me for some time, and with some 
persons to practice the Hebrew, the Greek, Latin, French and Dutch. 
The Secretary of the Council (Mr. Milton) for my Dutch I read him, read 
me many more languages. Grammar rules begin to be esteemed a tyranny. 
I taught two young gentlemen, a Parliament man's son, as we teach our 
children English, by words, phrases and constant talk." The Sadlier 
correspondence took place during this period of Mr. Williams' absence. 
Mr. Williams returned by sail to Boston, bringing a passport from the 
the Council of State for a safe passage to Providence. In the official 
letter regretful reference is made to the "distance" between the Bay and 
Plantations people. In return for the courtesies of the Bay Colony, Mr. 
Williams wrote the remarkable letter to the General Court of Massa- 
chusetts as to the relations of the Colonies and the Indians and the im- 
portance of maintaining peace and friendship with the Narragansetts and 
allied tribes. This letter is a valuable evidence as to Mr. Williams' peace 
spirit and policy. 

The letter of Sir Harry Vane, brought by Mr. Williams and undoubt- 
edly suggested by him and the reply by Gregory Dexter, demand brief 



PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS 341 

attention. Vane's letter is sent "to the inhabitants of Providence Colony 
by the hands of Roger Williams," Mr. Williams had been the guest of 
Vane at Belleau, his country seat, enjoys the confidence of the statesman, 
reveals to him particulars as to social and civil matters in the New Eng- 
land Colonies, and in detail, the goings on at Boston, Providence and New- 
port. Mr. Williams' version of conditions is accepted and Vane's ex- 
posures and criticisms are but a transcript of Mr. Williams' mental and 
judicial attitude and fully approved by him. While all the Colonial 
plants were subject to discords and divisions, Aquidneck at this time had 
no special distemper, as the Coddington government was now a matter 
of ancient history. We may assure ourselves that the aim of Sir Harry 
Vane was to silence, if possible, the murmurings at Providence against 
Mr. Williams, and to quell the civil disturbances that were at times so 
violent. Heroic treatment must be administered to savage diseases, and 
this letter of Vane's is of the nature to save or destroy the body civil. 
Yielding, in his retirement, to the request of "my kinde friend and ancient 
acquaintance," and "out of the Christian love I bear for you," Sir Henry 
writes: "How is it that there are such divisions amongst you? Such 
headiness, tumults, disorders and injustice? The noise echoes into the 
ears of all, as well friends as enemies, by every return of shipps from 
those parts. Is not the fear and awe of God amongst you to restraine? 
Is not the love of Christ in you, to fill you with yearning bowells, one 
towards another, and constrain you not to live to yourselves, but to him 
that died for you, yea, and is risen again? Are there no wise men amongst 
you? No public selfdenying spirits, that at least, upon the grounds of 
public safety, equity and prudence, can find out some way or means of 
union and reconciliation for you amongst yourselves, before you become 
a prey to common enemies, especially since this state, by the last letter 
from the Council of State, gave you your freedom, as supposing a better 
use would have been made of it than there hath been. Surely, when kind 
and simple remedies are applied and are ineffectual, it speaks loud and 
broadly the high and dangerous distemper of such a body, as if the wounds 
were incurable. But I hope better things from you, though I thus speak." 

Vane suggests that commissioners might put a stop to "your growinge 
breaches and distractions, silence your enemies, encourage your friends 
and honor the name of God, which of late hath been much blasphemed by 
reason of you." 

A reply quickly follows from the ready pen and versatile mind of the 
prince of letter-writers of Providence, Gregory Dexter. For adroitness 
and skill in parrying the sharp strokes of Vane's quill, this letter is a 
master-piece in its sophistry and special pleading for the town of Provi- 
dence, an innocent, lamb-like sufferer, it is a match with the double deal- 



342 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

ing of William Dyer, his Newport cotemporary. Note the method of the 
diplomat of Providence in his note to Vane, Aug. 27, 1654. "Aggrieved 
at your late retirement from ye helme of publicke affairs." "We rejoice 
to reape the sweete fruits of your rest in your pious and lovinge lines 
most seasonably suit us." (sic). "Thus, Sir, your sun, when he retires 
his brightness from ye world, yet from ye very cloud we perceave his 
presence and enjoy some light and heat and sweet refreshinge." "So 
noble and true a friend to an outcast and despised people." "We reaped 
ye sweete fruits of your constant loving kindness and favour towards 
us." "Oh, Sir, whence then is it that you have bent your bow. and shot 
your sharpe and bitter arrowes now against us? Whence is it yet you 
charge us with divisions, disorders. &c." Note the agreement of "yc 
sweet fruits." and "pious and lovinge lines" with "your sharp and bitter 
arrowes" shot "against us." Now comes the parrying blow. Providence 
is not the guilty party : it is Newport, when Coddington began to disturb 
"the compleate order of the Colony and, by lying, procured a monopoly 
of part of ye Colonie, vie: Rhode Island to himself e and so occasioned 
our general disturbances and distractions." And then Mr. William Dyre 
is introduced as a great disturber of the peace of the Colony, making him 
a partner with others of most unnecessary and unrighteous plunderings, 
both of Dutch and French and English. This bold stroke was aimed at 
Rhode Island for its offensive and defensive war against the Dutch at 
Manhattan, which Providence men opposed, and this, notwithstanding 
the fact, that Coddington was deposed by Williams. Dyer and Clarke, on 
the ground that he favored the Dutch and rendered them assistance in 
guns and ammunition. 

We come now to this remarkable confession and illumination of 
social and civil affairs at Providence. "Yet we may not lay all the load 
upon other men's backs, possibly a sweete cup hath rendered many of 
us wanton and too active. For we have long drunk of ye cup of as great 
liberties as any people, yt we can hear of under the whole Heaven." 
Grateful for freedom "from ye iron yoake of wolfish bishops and their 
Popish ceremonies" and that "we have sitten quiet and drie from ye 
streams of blood split by ye warr in our native country" (as cowards who 
run from a brave fight usually do) "we have not felt ye new chains of ye 
Presb)-terian tyrants" (of the Bay Colony) ; "nor (in this Colonie) have 
we been consumed with ye overzealous fire of ye (so-called) Godly and 
Christian magistrates. Sir, we have not known what an excise means. 
We have almost forgotten what tythes are ; yea or taxes either to church 
or commonweale." Here we have in a nutshell the sum of the cupfull of 
"great liberties" of the people at Providence. 

Gregory Dexter, in this remarkable bit of composition, is speaking 
for the whole town of Providence in 1654, nearly twenty years after the 



PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS 343 

occupation of the Moshassiick Valley by Roger Williams. It is an official 
rejoinder and rebuttal of Sir Harry Vane's charges. As Mr. Dexter is 
a most faithful friend of Mr. Williams, the letter must have received his 
personal approval as well as the approval of your "most humble servants, 
the Towne of Providence, in the Colonie of Providence Colonic, in New 
England. Gregorie Dexter, Town Clarke." 

Let us note the several ingredients of "ye cup of great liberties" of 
which the people of Providence "haiie long drunk." 

First, Freedom from the "iron yoaks of wolfish bishops" of the 
Church of England, "and their Popish ceremonies." 

Second, Freedom from the "new chains of ye Presbjierian tyrants," 
the Puritan Church of the Bay Colony. 

Third, Freedom from "ye overzealous fire of ye Godly and Christian 
magistrates." Mr. W'illiams wrote in 1638, that Providence could not en- 
dure "the face of magistracy" and there is no record of any civil officer 
as a town constable, until 1649. Freedom, indeed ! Freedom from Sun- 
day laws, freedom as to drunkenness and debauchery, freedom as to 
adultery and whoredom, freedom from all criminal laws and restraints, 
freedom for unlicensed consciences. 

Fourth, Freedom from excises. TTie first record of a tax on imports 
at Providence appears under date of June 2, 1656, when an excise tax 
was fixed on all wine and liquors. 

Fifth, No titles nor taxes either to church, town nor Commonwealth. 
The first tax of record in Providence was fixed April 27, 1649, when it 
was ordered that "a rate shall be levied and gather (ed), 3d for cows, id 
for swine and id for goats, for common charges by the constable of the 
Town." 

Five items and five only constitute the contents of the "Cup of Lib- 
erty" from which Providence had drunk, with such perfect satisfaction 
and content for nearly two decades. No mention is made of the Cup of 
Civil and Soul Liberty in this inventory of Colonial freedom, for one 
clear and all-sufficient reason, — the people of Providence had never 
drunk from it. Even Mr. Williams, in the historic letter he wrote to the 
town of Providence, on his return from England, to which we shall refer 
later, said, "I have been charged with folly for that freedom and libertic 
which I have always stood for. I say libertie and equality in lands and 
government. The "Lands and Government" as administered in and by 
the Proprietary at Providence were the ideals of the freedom which Mr. 
Williams had set for himself and the community at Providence. 

On March, 1655, Cromwell, Lord Protector, addressed a letter to all 
the towns of the Colony counselling them to proceed in their government 
according to the tenor of their charter, "taking care of ye peace and safety 



344 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

of those Plantations, that neither through any intestine commotions, or 
forragne invasions, there doe arise any detriment or dishonor to this 
Commonwealth or yourselves." Concerning complaints that had reached 
the Protector that the Colony "aboundes with whoredom," a law was 
passed ordering each town to pass such ordinances against adultery as 
the town magistrates should think meet to suppress adultery and the 
solicitations leading to "ye assaultinge of a woman, tendinge to ravish- 
ment." The laxity of laws as to sexuality in England had made illicit 
intercourse and illegitimate births common in England and the freedom 
of sex relations became an easy habit in the early life of the Colonies, 
not only of the white population among themselves but also of white men 
with Indian women. To curb this evil, Massachusetts Bay Colony made 
adultery punishable with death, while Plymouth made such intercourse 
subject to heavy fine or public whipping of both parties. The Rhode 
Island law of 1647 made buggery and rape punishable with death, while 
adultery was subject to current English law and sentence. In 1665, Peter 
Tollman sought a divorce from his wife on the grounds of adultery. 
She confessed her guilt to the court and was sentenced to pay ten pounds 
and to be publicly whipped at Portsmouth and Newport. Little attention 
seems to have been given to this class of crimes in any of the Rhode Island 
towns, especially in those where "conscience liberty" approved of such 
sex freedom. 

Perhaps the most remarkable revelation of the internal conditions at 
Providence is revealed in the letter of Mr. Williams to his "well beloved 
friends and neighbors" at Providence on his return from England. Dur- 
ing his three years' absence, his enemies held sway in the town and, on 
his return, he met with a cool reception and this letter is a clear expres- 
sion of an honest though a depressed spirit on account of the treatment 
he has received. "I am like a man in a great fog. I know not well how 
to steer. I fear to run upon the rocks at home, havinge had trials abroad. 
I fear to nm quite backward as men in a mist doe, ins. : to keep up the 
name of a people, a free people, not enslaved to the bondages and iron 
yokes of the great oppressions of the English and barbarians about us, 
nor to the divisions and disorders within ourselves. What have I reaped 
of the root of being the stepping stone of so many families and townes 
about us, but grief and sorrow and bitterness. I have been blamed for 
parting with Moshassuck, and afterwards of Pawtuxet, which were mine 
owne as any man's coate upon his back." "It hath been told that I labored 
for a licentious and contentious people. * * * This, and tenn times 
more I have been censured for, and at this present am called a traitor, 
by one partie, against the State of England for not maintainge the charter, 
and the Colonic; and it is said I am as good as banished by yourselves, 



PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS 345 

and that both sides wished that I might never have landed, that the fire 
of contention might have had no stop in burning. Indeed the words have 
been so sharp between myself and some latelie, that I even forced to say 
they might well silence all complayntes if I once began to complayne, 
who was unfortunatelie fetched and drawne from employment and sent 
to soe vast distance from my familie to do your work of a high and 
costlie nature for soe manie dayes and weeks and months together, and 
there left to starve or steal or beg or borrow." Mr. Williams continues 
to castigate the people of Providence for their "contentions of brethren," 
and to charge them with great ingratitude for the self-sacrificing services 
he has rendered. "Surely your charges and complaints, each against 
other, have not nor covered anything, as we use to cover the nakedness 
of those we love." Mr. Williams closes his long letter of lamentations 
by an appeal "for pacification and accommodation of our sad differences." 
All differences that cannot be settled by debate and mutual concession he 
advises to "offer to be judged and censured by four men" to be chosen 
by the parties in discussion. Our sympathies are strongly aroused by 
these pathetic utterances of a public servant, who, on his return from an 
important mission was received so coldly by both parties of his home 
town. His words seem like the lamentations of an old prophet of Israel, 
freed from the denunciations and judgments of the elder day. We get 
here an insight into Mr. Williams' mentality and force of character, but 
not on the side of admiration or even satisfaction. Returning from a 
three years' absence he finds his home people torn in pieces by social and 
civil discords. Fault finding and personal complainings are not the proper 
antidotes for such disorders. Firmness, courage and strong confidence 
do not take refuge behind such weak defences. It will be remembered 
that Mr. Williams suggested that he might "flee to little Prudence" to 
escape from the baleful influence of Gorton, and leave "poor Providence," 
as he often called it, to shift for itself. Fighting courage was not one of 
Mr. Williams' virtues. His defensive weapons, in the hours of danger 
and of doubt are compromise, compliance, surrender. His knighthood 
won its spurs on untenanted battlefields. He was a Pacifist. "The winter 
of 1654-5 was one of unusual turbulance in Providence," says Arnold. 
"Conscience liberty" had unrestrained expression. Ideas bordering on 
anarchy were freely uttered and Thomas Olney and others took up arms 
against the magistrates, under the pretexi: of a volunteer training. The 
persons involved were no less than Thomas Olney, Robert Williams, John 
Field, William Harris and others of that party. As an illustration of the 
spirit of "Truth and Freedom of Conscience," so strongly emphasized 
by Mr. Williams, a paper was sent to the town authorities declaring "that 
it was blood-guiltiness, and against the rule of the Gospel to execute judg- 



346 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

tnoit upon transgressors against the private or public weal." Here is a 
pernicious doctrine that "out-Herods Herod" and gives free indulgence 
to every crime outlawed by the Decalogue. The sad thing about it was 
that it was advocated by leading men in the Colony like William Harris, 
Thomas Olney, town clerk, and others of that type, and was a fruitage 
of the seed sowing of the noxious doctrine of "conscience liberty" in its 
absolution of sinners against law, on the ground of such liberty. 

This position was taken by Gorton in his first advent, when Mr. Wil- 
liams wrote of him "as bewitching & bemadding poor Providence with 
his unclean and foul censures of all the ministers of this country * * * 
also denying all visible and external ordinances," etc. Judge Staples 
wrote, "The extent of the difficulties and disunions in the town may well 
be inferred from the following circumstance. Henry Fowler was warned 
to ye court to answer for his marriage without due publication and he 
pleaded yet ye divisions of the Towne were the cause of his so doeing ye 
Towne wanted a remission of his penalties." 

At this time appeared the letter of Mr. Williams, defining, in a clear 
and orthodox fashion, the relation of soul liberty to law and magistracy. 
By it he controverts his earlier attitude, prior to his banishment, and 
afiirm? all that has been claimed for freedom under law, from the days 
of the Christian era, to "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's 
and to God the things that are God's." Roger Williams, of 1654, now in 
a position to advise as to the making of a free state, has a new vision of 
things that are true, honest and of just report relative to loyalty and lib- 
erty. The whole letter is too precious a testimonial to the honesty of 
spirit and the conversion of heart of the Roger Williams of 1634 to omit 
it from Rhode Island history. It is a fitting rebuke to the anarchy of the 
twentieth century as it was a timely one to the anarchists of Providence 
of 1654. "Conscience liberty" gets its death blow at the hands of its most 
devoted friend and advocate. Mr. Williams has spent three years in the 
school of Vane, Cromwell and John Milton and has imbibed their wise 
teachings. 

In 1657, Benedict Arnold was chosen Colonial President with Arthur 
Fenner, William Baulston, Richard Tew, and Randall Holden, Assistants. 
The chief event of the year was the impeachment of William Harris for 
high treason on charges presented by Roger Williams in a letter addressed 
to the General Court. As neither Harris nor Williams were present at 
the May session of the Court, a special session was called at Warwick, 
for July 4 to hear the case when the parties to the trial appeared. Harris 
was ordered to read to the Court such parts of his "Booke" as contained 
the supposed treasonable utterances, while Mr. Williams was ordered "to 
read over his charges" and his reply to the "Booke." John Wickes of 



PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS 347 

Warwick and John Easton of Newport were chosen to listen to the case 
"til! aboute foure the clock this afternoone," and to draw up in writing 
their proposals and recommendations. Their report follows : 

"Concerninge William Harris, his Booke and speeches upon it: We 
find therein delivered as for doctrine, having much bowed the Scripture 
to maintaine, that he that can say it is his conscience ought not to yield 
subjection to any human order amongst men. Whereas. Tlie sayd Harris 
hath been charged for the sayd booke and words with High Treason ; and 
inasmuch as ever being soe remote from England, cannot be soe well 
acquainted in the laws thereof in that behalfe provided, as the State now 
stands ; though we cannot but conclude his behavior therein to be both 
contemptuous and seditious; we thought best therefore, to send over his 
writings with the charge and his reply to Mr. John Clarke, desiringe him 
to commend the matter in our and the Commonwealth's behalf, for fur- 
ther judgment as he shall see the cause requires ; and in the meantime to 
binde the sayd Harris in good bonds to the good behavior until their sen- 
tence be known." 

President Arnold, Recorder John Sanford, John Easton and Joseph 
Garke, all of Newport, were chosen to present the case in full form to 
the English Council of State, through Dr. John Clarke, then in London. 
Harris's bond for £500 was placed in the hands of the Court, but 
was never referred to afterwards and no decision was ever rendered. 
Bitter hatred ever after existed between Williams and Harris and the 
people of Providence were divided for years into Harris and Williams 
parties. "Mr. Williams so disliked Mr. Harris that he would not write 
his name at length, but abbreviated it thus, W. Har.," says a biographer. 
Harris though not an anarchist in spirit, was in error. His philosophy 
of civil government would not stand the test of a Democratic Court or 
jury, but it was the logical conclusion of Mr. Williams' teachings and acts 
on "Conscience Liberty," a doctrine both licentious and anarchistic. The 
viper "High Treason" was warmed and nourished in Williams' bosom. 

It was in 1657 that the Bay Colony asked our Colony to banish the 
Quakers who had found a harbor of safety at Newport. The reply was a 
gracious one, but firm in its defence of the Rhode Island principle of 
civil and soul liberty. As expressed almost twenty years earlier at Ports- 
mouth and Newport, obedience to law and the duties of citizenship would 
be the tests of loyalty in Rhode Island, said President Arnold, but our 
organic law will not allow us to establish religious tests, thereby exclud- 
ing any and all who differ from us, in creed and worship, while at the 
same time they are good citizens. 

Benedict Arnold's presidency continued by annual elections until 
1660, when he was succeeded for two years by William Brenton of New- 
port. Again in 1662, Arnold was again chosen President, holding the 



348 



HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 



office at the time of the reception and adoption of the Royal Charter in 
1663. Cromwell's death as Lord Protector of England, occurred in Sep- 
tember, 1658, and his son Richard assumed the head of the government 
until May, 1659. He was proclaimed Lord Protector by His "loyall sub- 
jects of Rhode Island" on the nth of March, 1658-9, but the news of his 
recognition did not reach him before he had vacated the office, which he 
was incompetent to fill. 

A twelvemonth passes, and Charles the Second was proclaimed king 
at Westminster, amid the rejoicings of the English people, May 8, 1660, 
entered London, May 29, 1660, and was crowned April 23, 1661. The 
Democracy of the short Protectorate of eight years is cut short by the 
death of Cromwell and a new monarch assumes the kingship and the 
throne made vacant by his father's death by the executioner's axe in 
1649. "The King is Dead! Long Live the King!" 




CHAPTER XIX 



PROVIDENCE AND AQUIDNECK CONTRASTED 




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CHAPTER XIX. 
PROVIDENCE AND AQUIDNECK CONTRASTED. 

We have seen two independent settlements founded on Narragansett 
Bay in 1638. The town of Providence was founded by Roger Williams 
and his associates, at the head of tide-water, at a place called by the 
Indians, Moshassuck. 

The Colony of Rhode Island was founded by William Coddington, 
John Clarke and their associates, on Aquidneck, an island, facing the 
Atlantic, at the mouth of Narragansett Bay and thirty miles south of 
Providence. 

Each of these settlements was for a period of years, a distinct civil 
corporation, in no way related to the other, during the formative period 
of their existence. Each was in friendly relations with the other, but 
each held its own individuality, separate and apart from the other. It is 
absolutely necessary to keep these facts in mind in order to understand 
the early history of the Narragansett Bay peoples and to interpret the 
events in their true relation to civil and religious freedom. This new 
history of Rhode Island is written for the purpose of setting at rest, once 
and forever, the mental derangement growing out of the "Confusion of 
Tongues" as to the identity and clearly distinct personality, consciously 
manifest in early settlement on the Bay. The student of Colonial Plant- 
ings is called upon "to read, mark and inwardly digest" the historic 
facts relative to the two settlements. 

In June, 1636, Roger Williams with four or five companions crossed 
the Seekonk and sat down on the east bank of the Moshassuck River, the 
others joined him, and for two years no definite action was taken by the 
Company, until, in the winter of 1637-38, Coddington and Clarke coming 
from Boston, and representing a large number of families seeking a new 
place for settlement, visited Mr. Williams to advise with him as to their 
future home. Their final decision was to purchase Aquidneck Island at 
the entrance of Narragansett Bay, and on March 24, 1638, Mr. Codding- 
ton received from Miantonomi, the deed of the island territory, paying 
therefore a fair money value, and on the same day and at the same place, 
Narragansett, now Wichford, Mr. Williams received the life estate of a 
large land area, between the Pawtucket and Pawtuxet Rivers, as a free 
gift. Later Indian concessions to the Proz'idence Proprietary extended 
the bounds north and west to include the territory to the east line of 
Connecticut Colony and to the south line of the Massachusetts Bay Col- 
ony, the whole receiving the name Providence. While there are scanty 



352 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

records of the PRO\^DENCE Proprietary, there are none of the organi- 
zation of a corporate body, called Providence Pl-antatioxs. In fact no 
such organization ever existed as related to Providence alone or to any 
organized body or association of towns at the north end of the Bay. The 
terms Providence Plantations first appears in the Patent obtained by 
Roger Williams in 1644, in which the three towns, Providence, Ports- 
mouth and Newport are named as constituting the Colony of "Providence 
Plantations in the Narragansett Bay in S^eic England." This title was 
the official name of the four towns. Providence, Warwick, Portsmouth 
and Newport, from 1647 to 1663, with the exception of the period of the 
withdrawal of the Aquidneck towns during the Coddington rule from 
165 1 to 1653. It is proposed, in this chapter, to consider and compare 
the leading features of the two settlements, Moshussnck, in the north, led 
by Roger Williams, and Aquidneck, in the south, led by Oarke and 
Coddington. 

The Moshassuck settlement was made up of a body of people, 
mostly of Salem. Massachusetts, who, for various reasons, followed Mr. 
Williams in his banishment, hoping to better their condition in a new 
settlement. None had had any practical experience in town afifairs ; with 
the exception of Mr. Williams, all had little learning and small properties. 
None had a purpose of founding a town and most refused orderly town 
government, preferring individual freedom and licenses to the control of 
magistrates of law. There was no unifying force in the Moshassuck 
settlement and so diversified were the opinions and desires of the people 
that the personality of Mr. Williams was not equal to the task of har- 
monizing the settlers and preventing factional divisions and social strife. 

The Aquidneck settlement was made up of a body of people well- 
educated and well-to-do, all from Boston, members of the First Puritan 
Church, and for a period of years, united in the support of town and 
church government. Many of the leading men had held principal offices 
in town and Colonial government in the Bay Colony. All had comfort- 
able homes and were self-supporting in business. Allied in social, civil 
and religious afifairs, acquaintanceship had flowed into good fellowship 
and unf-y of desire and purpose. Mrs. Hutchinson's Forum had clarified 
intellef ual thought and spiritual life and intensified the love for civil 
and religious freedom. The visions of a State free from the narrowing 
conceits of the Puritan clergy was enlarged by honest debate and made 
possible in personal experience. A new Commonwealth is unconsciously 
forming. Tlie winter of 1637-38 witnessed a remarkable exodus from 
Boston. A body of families, welded into one by a common experience of 
civil and ecclesiastical power and oppression, prepares to leave well estab- 
lished homes, the industries of family support, social and church rela- 



PROVIDENCE AND AQUIDNECK CONTRASTED 353 

tions and invested properties, in search of a new home, as yet unknown 
to tliem. Their leaders, the Moses and Joshua of their wanderings were 
Dr. John Clarke and William Coddington. Guided by a kind Providence 
they find a Promised Land on the Island of Aquidneck, at the mouth of 
Narragansett Bay. They purchase their lands of the Indian owners, enter 
into a compact to erect a town, towns and a State on the foundations of 
individual liberty in things civil and spiritual, as they had pledged to each 
other before their forced removal from their Boston homes. Sober, 
earnest and thoughtful men, it was no Utopia, no new Atlantis, no real- 
ization of a splendid dream, which they had at heart, but the establishment 
of the divine principle of authority on the common interest and common 
consent : the making, by a contribution from the free-will of all, a power 
which should curb and guide the free-will of each for the general good. 
In the establishment of a settlement, we find among the fifty or more 
families, unity, harmony, and a reverence for law human and divine. 
The centrifugal force of brotherhood and Christian fellowship binds all, 
in a common purpose, at Aquidneck. 

It is difficult to state a common or general motive that led to the 
assemblage of people at Moshassuck between 1636 and 1640. A few, like 
Roger Williams, were banished for cause ; others followed him sympa- 
thetically ; some saw a new opportunity for possessing Indian lands in 
an unoccupied territory; none contemplated the founding of a new town 
or the setting up a new form of government. To most it was a venture, 
with nothing to lose and all to gain. Failure and a return to the neigh- 
borhood of the Bay Colony would not have been a disappointment or a 
source of tears to most. To Mr. Williams a return was impossible. His 
choice lay between a log cabin at Moshassuck or an Indian wigwam and 
a mission among the Narragansetts. As an opportunist he chose to wait, 
in poverty, in his cabin — and the opportunity came. Arnold states, "It was 
not the intention of Mr. Williams * * * to become the founder of 
a State." Mr. Williams says, "I desired not to be troubled with English 
company, yet out of pity I gave leave to William Harris, the poor and 
destitute, to come along in my company. I consented to John Smith, 
Miller at Dorchester (banished also) to go with me, and at John Smith's 
desire, to a poor young fellow, Francis Wickes, as also to a lad of Rich- 
ard Waterman's. These are all I remember." Mr. Dorr calls Mr. Wil- 
liams and his little company "the first squatter sovereigns in the new 
world." For two years and more they were people without a home, pos- 
sessions, laws or country. When persons of some financial or business 
ability arrived they drew apart from Mr. Williams' neighborhood. The 
Arnolds and Carpenters settled down at Pawtuxet, William Field and 
Harris at Mashapaug, Gorton and company at Pocasset. Each was chief 

8 I— M 



354 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

in his own chosen territory, a law unto himself in his own individual 
right. 

The founding of a town calls for the union in action of a number 
of individuals, whose property qualifications justify expenditure of money 
and whose purposes include organization, principles of municipal pro- 
cedure and corporate officers and the ownership of property, corporate 
or in severalty. Any assemblage of people lacking these qualifications 
have no claim to a municipality. Moshassuck was lacking in most of 
these particulars. 

No English parish, in .American towns, but of domestic and secular 
origin. — No charter source. 

Proposition One. Roger Williams did not, in any recorded form, 
utter any distinct statement as to liberty of conscience, in relation to the 
settlers or the civil and business polity of the settlement at Providence, 
nor did lie discriminate between conscience liberty and religious liberty in 
his work in attempting to organize civil society. By reason of this failure 
he created an "immoralism based on the idea that the individual has a 
right to express his personality, without in any way considering the claims 
of the community of which he forms a part." The will of the citizen was 
not expressed in any form except as related to lanas and land owner- 
ship. 

As a consequence men of disordered and depraved consciences found 
a ready asylum at Providence. One man's conscience allowed him to 
beat his wife frequently and cruelly. Another's conscience did not recog- 
nize the Christian Sabbath. Another's conscience forbade the payment of 
taxes. All refused magistracy, on grounds of conscience freedom. Steal- 
ing from the common lands of the Proprietors was sustained by the same 
principle. Every form of civil disorder was practiced and tolerated at 
Providence, on the ground that each man's conscience was the arbiter as 
to his conduct and that neither law nor magistrate should interfere. Judge 
Staples, the annalist of Providence, tells us that, in 1672, when for the 
first time, deputies to the General Assembly were required to take the 
oath of office, it was "to the great dissatisfaction of the good people of 
Providence, who protested against it" on the ground "it is contrary to the 
liberties granted to us in our charter, our charter not binding us to any 
such thing, and many persons scrupling such impositions to be imposed 
on them." 

For a fuller revelation of the singular conduct of "distressed con- 
sciences" at Providence, even to fightings and deeds of violence, reference 
is made to Vol. IX., Collections of the Rhode Island Historical Society, 
entitled "The Proprietors of Providence and Their Controversies with 
the Freeholders," by Henry C. Dorr, 1897. For the purpose of testi- 
mony on most vital matters relating to the "immoralism" of the doc- 



PROVIDENCE AND AQUIDNECK CONTRASTED 355 

trine of "conscience liberty," as illustrated in the "lively experiment" 
inaugurated by Mr. Williams at Providence, it furnishes abundant proof 
that an asylum for weak, erring or diseased consciences is not a safe place 
to establish a Democracy, with full religious freedom. Such a class of 
people have in all times and in all places fostered discord, tumult, anarchy. 
"Poor Providence," as Mr. Williams often lamentingly called it, was not 
an exception to the law. 

Here then, at Providence, was a turbulent community, committing 
deeds of violence, unchecked by laws, in no sense a State or Colony char- 
acterized by "organized, legalized morality," and all the product of a 
loose regard for rights of property or civil restraints. To call it a free 
Commonwealth would be a sad degredation of a noble title. 

Proposition Two. In 1643, Mr. Williams, moved by the discords 
and strife at Providence, of his own motion, journeyed to London for 
a Patent or charter. Aided by Sir Harry Vane he obtained what is 
known as the Roger Williams Patent of 1644. We would expect that 
an eminent expounder of conscience libert}', by the aid of Vane would 
procure an instrument clearly guaranteeing such liberty. What do we 
find in the Patent of 1643-4? There is not a syllable referring to free- 
dom of conscience, soul liberty or religious freedom, nor did it contain 
any grant of land. It was a simple document, in usual form, empower- 
ing the planters to rule themselves as English subjects, with the bounds 
of their civil jurisdiction "so vague, ambiguous and uncertain," as to 
invite occupation of the Narragansett Country by the Atherton Company 
of Boston on the east, and the Connecticut settlers on the west. 

With an assumption of authority unparalleled in American history, 
Mr. Williams caused the Aquidneck Colony to be incorporated with the 
Providence Proprietory under the title of the Colony of Providence 
Plantations, when as yet Providence had no legal existence, save as a 
voluntary association of shareholders in a land corporation, with an 
annex of a community of "distressed consciences." As a matter of fact, 
Providence never had a distinct Colonial life, and no corporate life until 
1649, thirteen years after its settlement by Mr. Williams and five com- 
panies. 

The Aquidneck settlement was made at Pocasset (Portsmouth) by 
a large body of families, united by a solemn compact, signed by the prin- 
cipal leaders of the migration, and affirmed by all adult persons of the 
company. This compact was signed at Boston, before the emigrants set 
out in their search for a home, under date of March 7, 1638. The import- 
ance of this instrument as evidence of the motives and the purposes of 
the founders of Aquidneck justifies its introduction at this point of our 
discussion. 



356 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

"We whose names are underwritten do here solemnly in the 

PRESENCE OF JeHOVAH INCORPOR-^TE OURSELVES INTO A BoDIE POLITICK 
AND AS He shall help, will SUBMIT OUR PERSONS, LIVES AND ESTATES, 

UNTO OUR Lord Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords 
and to all those perfect and most absolute lawes of his given in 
His Holy Word of truth, to be guided and judged thereby." . 

Here we have, in March, 1638, before the purchase and possession 
of land by either WilHams or Coddington, and more than six months 
prior to the formation of the Providence Proprietary at Moshassuck, 
the organization and incorporation of a civil State, "a Bodie Politick," at 
Boston, by the agreement of twenty-three representative men, led by 
William Coddington, John Oarke and others. The original copy of this 
remarkable document is preserved among the most valuable archival 
deposits of the State. The covenant is in the hand-writing of Dr. John 
Oarke, whose name stands next to Mr. Coddington's. Here then were 
set forth the foundations of a Commonwealth, established as the basic 
principles of the Old and New Testament Scripture teachings. Its lang- 
uage is as clean and intelligible as the Ten Commandments, the Lord's 
Prayer and the Sermon on the Mount. The basis of the town organization 
was the joint interest of individuals, commonly termed freemen or in- 
habitants, but sometimes planters, in a tract of land referred to indiffer- 
ently as a town and as a plantation and their inhabitants were in the nature 
of stockholders in a modern corporation. As such they exercised a 
jealous oversight over the admission of new inhabitants, proprietors or 
stockholders. Its interpretation is to be found in the legislation that 
flowed from it and the institutions and government established by it. 
Historian Arnold, writing of the working of this new "Bodie Politick," 
a year after its establishment at Pocasset (Portsmouth), says, "Up to 
this time the government had been a pure Democracy. All acts had been 
passed in public meetings of the whole body. The judge and clerk had 
acted only as chairman and secretary of the assembled townsmen, by 
whom all laws had been passed, and all proceedings, whether legislative, 
judicial or executive, conducted." In order to understand the initial acts 
and procedure of legislation, the offices created, the officers elected and 
the unfolding and development of the new State, to avoid needless repeti- 
tion, the reader must turn to the chapter relating to it. 

We have seen elsewhere the initial acts of the Boston migration 
on Aquidneck, harmonizing with the compact made in Boston, prior to its 
departure. Vitality, coherency, unity, brotherhood and independency 
characterize all the movements on the Island for a series of years, except- 
ing always the usual divergency of individual opinions on all questions 
of law and order in a democratic State. Without the freedom for indi- 
vidual vif'n's and expression, the community has no claim for civil equality. 



PROVIDENCE AND AQUIDNECK CONTRASTED 357 

At Moshassuck, the first act of permanent value, was the transfer of 
the Indian land title, by free gift, from Miantonomi to Roger Williams, 
March 24, 1638. On the demand of some of the settlers at Providence, 
Mr. Williams, for a consideration, sold twelve-thirteenths of his life estate 
to twelve of his associates, thereby forming a Proprietary of thirteen 
proprietors of equal interest in the whole estate. This proprietary was 
often called the Tozvn and its meetings Town Meetings. All the pro- 
prietors were "Maisters of families incorporated together into a towne 
fellowship." A majority of the proprietors could admit an inhabitant, 
who must be a married man with children. This private corporation, con- 
trolling all the land at Moshassuck made rules to govern its meetings and 
assumed the role of local government so far as such control harmonized 
with the major sentiment of the non-land-holding settlers, who were in 
the large majority at Moshassuck. An inhabitant or freeman, entitled to 
a vote in the proprietorship had an allotment of 100 acres of land. This 
right was carefully guarded. These had "equal fellowship to vote" with 
the thirteen original proprietors. Other persons were allowed to become 
townsmen as "twenty-five acres" or "quarter right men," and others still 
who had no land at all, neither of whom had a vote. Under date of 1645, 
twenty-eight "quarter right men" were received into Moshassuck. "The 
whole number of purchasers of both kinds never exceeded one hundred 
and one persons," is stated by Judge Staples, the last proprietor's clerk. 

Briefly stated there was no civil government at Providence, no town 
organization until 1647, no magistrate to enforce order, no public ex- 
pense, no proprietary taxation until 1647, no election by the people until 
1651, no warranty deeds of land, no civil or criminal processes served 
and no officer to perform the service. As a result we find dissention, 
discord, tumults and affrays daily, and the asylum of refuge of "distressed 
consciences" became a distressed bedlam of discontents — almost anar- 
chists. Mr. Williams withdrew from the field of strife and made a new- 
home at his trading house at Narragansett, from 1645 to 1653. 

It is evident that Mr. Williams had no definite plan of action as to 
the community he had gathered about him. Malcontents in Massachus- 
etts, malcontents they continued to be at Providence. Wanting in organ- 
izing ability, disputatious and contentious in spirit, Mr. Williams became 
an alien among the people he had drawn together. His superior educa- 
tion and his influence with the chiefs of the Narragansetts were his main 
assets in commanding a measure of respect from those who knew him 
least. Even his Indian trading house proved a failure for want of the 
patronage of his swarthy friends along the Pequot trail. The volume 
especially relating to Providence discusses in detail the History of Early 
Providence and the chief actors therein. 



358 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

The consummate act of the Aquidneck Settlements, was the union 
of the two towns, Portsmouth and Newport, under a Colonial form of 
government in 1640. Here, we see the enlargement and fulfilment of 
the Boston compact, promptly executed. The principle of a pure Dem- 
ocracy found expression in each of the original towns and then in an 
enlarged and united electorate of the combined freemen of the two towns 
in General Assembly, that met at Newport for the choice of general 
officers. The organization of the Colony was distinctly and indisputably 
legal, commercial and corporate and not religious, ecclesiastical or 
feudal. We believe that this election of Colonial officers at Newport, on 
the i6th of March, 1641. was the first democratic proceeding among civ- 
ilized men, of a considerable body of people, for the ends of civil govern- 
ment. Not only did it choose officers and do all necessary things for 
setting the Colonial government machinery in operation, but the Gener.\l 
Court or Legislature, elected by it, and organized under it, was a "Dem- 
ocratic, or Popular Government," when the "Body of Freemen" by a 
major vote could make "Just Laws" and "depute from among themselves 
such fninisters as shall see them faithfully executed between man and 
man." 

If a clearer definition of a pure democratic state was ever made we 
have failed to find it. Still more the academic proposition of a democratic 
state was made a practical reality, on Aquidneck, in 1641. Yet more, the 
General Assembly declared "that none bee accounted a delinquant 
FOR Doctrine." This was "the Rhode Island Doctrine," first enumer- 
ated at Newport, under Governor William Coddington as Chief Alagis- 
trate of the Rhode Island Colony, on Aquidneck. Still further, "a Man- 
ual Seale" was "provided for the State," * * * "the Signet or En- 
graving thereof shall be a Sheafe of Arrows bound up and in the Liess or 
Bend, this motto indented: Amor Vincet Omnia." Courts were estab- 
lished, magistrates chosen, a military- system was organized, taxes were 
assessed and collected, a free school established, the tenure of landed 
properties was made perpetual by legal assignment, and all acts and laws 
were made necessary for the successful prosecution of an orderly gov- 
ernment. 

This was the Civil Commonwealth, with "full freedom in religious 
concernments," concerning which so much has been written, but it was 
not located at nor did it originate in Providence or in Providence Plan- 
tations. In its establishment, Roger Williams had no share, not even 
that of an advisory actor. There is no evidence that he was even con- 
sulted as to principles of formation and details of operation. At the 
very time that Rhode Island Colony was being formed the people at 
Providence were trying to establish a "Plan of Arbitration" to settle in- 



PROVIDENCE AND AQUIDNECK CONTRASTED 359 

testine troubles that threatened the Hfe of the settlement, a plan so weak 
and inefficient that thirteen of the colonists wrote to the government of 
Massachusetts, praying them "of gentle courtesy and for the preservation 
of humanity and mankind," to consider their condition and to lend them 
"a neighbor-like helping hand" to enforce the execution of an award 
made by "eight men orderly chosen," against one of the inhabitants, in a 
civil matter. Providence was in a condition of anarchy, with no law, 
religion or government, in November, 1641, when an orderly town and 
Colonial government had been in successful operation since May, 1640, 
in the Rhode Island Colony on Aquidneck. 

The time has come for the correction of an error, almost world-wide, 
that Roger Williams, at Providence, established the first government in 
the world wherein civil and religious liberty had therein full recognition 
and practical application, a claim never made by Mr. Williams, and never 
asserted until a century after his death. The comparative history of the 
two settlements, Moshassuck and Aquidneck, absolutely destroys the claim 
made in behalf of Mr. Williams and confers it upon the leaders and body 
of settlers at Portsmouth and .Newport, of whom Dr. John Oarke was the 
well recognized intellectual and spiritual guide and statesman. Fortu- 
nately for the establishment of historic truth in the matter of the primacy 
of the principle involved, the lay mind has become liberally inclined to 
the claims of the Aquidneck Colony, while the denominational mind, in 
its support of the claims of Mr. Williams advocates, on the ground of 
his possible relation to the early Baptist Church at Providence, is virtually 
freed from a conscious or sub-conscious sentiment on the subject. To 
both classes of minds, in fact to all seekers after historic truth, there 
is a strong disposition "to hew to the line, even if the chips fly in their 
faces." With a judgment free from partisan bias, with a full knowledge 
of all the facts at issue with an acquaintance with the arguments used in 
support of the Moshassuck claim, with an ardent devotion to historic 
truth, and in the exercise of a conscience free from guile, I am sure that 
the final verdict of History will award the honor of establishing the first 
permanent Civil State among men wherein full democracy and full relig- 
ioi:s liberty dwell in harmonious union, on the Colony of Rhode Island 
on Aquidneck, on Narragansett Bay. 



CHAPTER XX 



THE SETTLEMENT OF SHAWOMET 







FALLS L\ TEX MILE R!\EK, AT HUNT'S MILLS 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE SETTLEMENT OF SHAWOMET. 

As Roger Williams was the leading actor in the founding of Provi- 
dence and Dr. John Clarke in the founding of Portsmouth and Newport, 
so Samuel Gorton stands as the founder of Warwick and the most com- 
manding figure in determining the character of the people and in the 
establishment of a town government. Samuel Gorton was born in the 
year 1592, in the town of Gorton, England, now a part of the city of 
Manchester. Here he received his early education and his religious train- 
ing was in the English church. In an address to Charles the Second he 
writes, "I drew my tenets from the breasts of my mother, the Church of 
England." While holding firmly all his hfe to the doctrines of that church, 
as to its practices he stood with the non-conformists of England and the 
Bay Colony. Gorton had received a classical education from able tutors 
and was well versed in English law. His library contained "the standard 
volumes in which the ancient statutes of his country were written." In 
literary education he was the equal of Williams, but both were surpassed 
by Clarke in the knowledge of the principles and administration of civil 
government. He had a clear and correct idea of soul liberty and wa9 
tolerant of all religious beliefs, though not in harmony with his own. "I 
yearned," he writes, "for a country where I could be free to worship God 
according to what the Bible taught me and as God enabled me to under- 
stand it." "Samuel Gorton," says Mackie, "was one of the noble spirits 
who esteemed liberty more than life, and, counting no sacrifice too great 
for the maintenance of principle, could not dwell at ease in a land where 
the inalienable rights of humanity were not acknowledged or were 
mocked at." "/ left my native country," he says, "to enjoy liberty of con- 
science in respect to faith toward God and for no other end." Such words 
have the clear tones of an idealist of religious liberty. 

Mr. Gorton's wife was a lady of education and refinement. Her 
maiden name was Mary Maplet, daughter of John Maplet, gentleman, of 
St. Martin's le Grand, London. Both families were wealthy for that day, 
and Samuel Gorton was the wealthiest of all the settlers in the Narragan- 
sett Bay country. 

Gorton landed in Boston, with his family, in March, 1637, while the 
Wheelwright-Hutchinson controversy was at its height. Surprised at the 
conditions existing in the Puritan church-state, he made a brief stay at 
Boston and went to Plymouth, intending to make that colony his future 
home. But an eighteen months' sojourn, with his family, in the old Pil- 
grim town seemed enough for ^is freer spirit and bolder assertion of per- 



364 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

sonal rights, wlien he departed, and, on his journey towards Shawomet, 
made a brief stay at Aquidneck. Here some trouble arose, which invoked 
a court trial, the result of which was so unsatisfactory to him, the defend- 
ant, that he styled his judge, Coddington, "a Just-Ass." As Aquidneck 
was not to his liking, through a somewhat trivial but quite unfortunate 
event, he moved again to Providence, not, however, without leaving in 
both communities clear proofs that Samuel Gorton was a virile man and 
an expert fighter with fists, tongue or pen. At Plymouth, Mr. Gorton 
asserted a broader democracy, and at Aquidneck the importance for a 
Royal Cliarter. As a matter of course, smaller matters entered into the 
personal quarrels in a controversial period of our local history. Into the 
portrayal of these it is not our purpose to enter. 

At Providence, Mr. Gorton received scant welcome from either party 
— the Williams or the Arnold-Harris group. The knowledge of his doings 
at Boston, Plymouth and Newport had preceded him, and his coming, 
with Randall Holden, Sampson Shotten and John Wickes, expelled from 
Aquidneck for disloyalty, was the signal for the corporation at Providence 
to shut its doors very tight against the men who had disturbed the peace 
of other infant settlements. Nevertheless, Gorton found some friends at 
Providence who favored his stay, of whom we may name John Greene, 
John Warner, Francis Weston, Ricliard Waterman, Robert Cole, and 
probably Ezekiel Holliman. Concerning Gorton, Governor Winslow, of 
Plymouth writes: 

From thence (Plymouth) hee went to Rhode Island, where hee began 
to raise sedition, and to make a party against the authority there; for 
which hee was apprehended and whipped, and so sent away. From thence 
(with some others whom hee had gathered to his part) hee removed to 
Providence, where Mr. Roger Williams then lived. Hee (with some 
others) opposed his sitting down there as an inhabitant, only in regard to 
his present distresse, they gave way for his abode for awhile. But being 
once housed, he soon drew so great a party to him, as it was beyond the 
power of Mr. Williams and his party to drive them out, or to rule them 
there ; so as both parties came armed into the field each against the other, 
and had fought it out, had not Mr. Williams used means for pacification. 

Under date of March 8, 1641, Mr. Williams writes: 

Master Gorton having foully abused high and low at Aquednick, is 
now bewitching and bemadding poore Providence, both with his uncleane 
and foul censures of all the Ministers of this Countr>' (for which myself 
have in Christ's name withstood him), and also denying all visible and 
externall ordinances in depth of Familisme, against which I have a little 
disputed and written, and shall (the Most High assisting) until death. 
As Paul said of Asia, I of Providence (almost) All such in his poyson, as 
at first they did at Aquednick, some few and myselfe his Inhabitation, and 
towne-priviledges, without reformation of his uncivill and inhuman prac- 



THE SETTLEMENT OF SHAWOMET 365 

tices at Portsmouth. Yet the tide is too strong against us, and I feare (if 
the framer of Hearts helpe not) it will force me to little Patience a little 
Isle next to your Prudence. 

"Poor Providence," as Mr. Williams calls his town, is rent by three 
factions — Williams', Harris' and Gorton's. Conditions were waxing from 
bad to worse before 1640. Gorton's advent has added fuel to the fires of 
discontent and discord. A civil revolution is on and the contestants must 
meet in arms on an open field and draw blood before a truce and settle- 
ment. 

The story must be told. It is too serious and the consequences of the 
struggle too important to pass it over in silence. Let us look into condi- 
tions existing in Providence that will enable us the better to understand 
the outburst of Mr. Williams and the angry, warlike relations of the set- 
tlers at Providence and the insurgent newcomers. We have seen that in 
October, 1638, Mr. Williams sold twelve-thirteenths of the Providence 
lands to twelve "Lo. (ving) Friends and neighbors." On the same day, 
to pacify the angry feelings of these "loving neighbors" he gives them 
twelve-thirteenths of his Pawtuxet lands — "A Sop to Cerberus." These 
Pawtuxet lands were held in high value by the purchasers. They were 
bounded by the Providence River on the east, a line running from Fox 
Hill (Fox Point) to and through Mashapaug Pond to Pocassett River, on 
the north ; the Pocassett River on the west and the Pawtuxet River, from 
the mouth of the Pocassett to Providence River, on the south. This was 
a fine estate and was eagerly seized for occupation and farm purposes by 
William Arnold, Robert Coles, William Harris, William Field, William 
Carpenter and others. Although the settlers at Providence were few in 
number, they were resolute in will and determined in purpose as to one 
thing, that was the possession of land. In this outlandish scramble, there 
was a group of men who owned all the lands, the proprietors, and another 
group of young, unmarried men, who, without families, and with little 
money, could not get possession of lands. "Distressed in conscience" 
before coming to Providence, the distress was enhanced after coming, in 
finding that there was a land famine in the midst of thousands of unoccu- 
pied acres. Money, a family and "the major vote" of the proprietors 
were essentials to becoming an inhabitant at Providence. The proprietors, 
with Roger Williams at the head, held the key to the situation, and "dis- 
tressed" or not, no man could enter the sanctuary at Providence without 
the above essentials. The little group of landed aristocrats, with feudal 
estates, was within ; the larger and growing group of landless, helpless 
townsmen was without, clamoring for a share in the plantations. Even 
John Smith, "the miller," who came with Mr. Williams in 1636, was an 
outside claimant, though "d''itressed in conscience," and expelled from 



366 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

the bay at the same time as Roger Wilhams. It was not until 1646-47 that 
he received a grant of valley land where his mill stood, although he had 
been the town miller several years. Thus the most useful man of the 
town, the man who built and ran the first factorj- on the plantations — a 
corn mill on the west bank of the Moshassuck — was not allowed a civil 
interest in the town and owned no lands for ten years. Mr. Williams' 
letter to Governor Winthrop, stating the grounds of his dislike to John 
Smith, is the key to unlock an apparent mystery. Nevertheless, John 
Smith, the miller of Moshassuck, came with Mr. WilHams for the same 
reason, "a distressed conscience." 

But within the group of proprietors there is a breach between Mr. 
Williams and William Harris that lasted till the death of both— forty 
years later — and each had his followers in the proprietary. A third fac- 
tion is found in such men as Robert Coles, Francis Weston. John Greene 
and Ezekiel Holliman — the last-named being the real founder of the first 
church at Providence. Of Coles it may be said that he was at times a 
member of each of several parties, his conduct evidently being regulated 
by the amount of New England rum he had drunk before his decision. 
It is of interest to note in the records of the Bay Colony how many times 
his name appears before the court for drunkenness, and on September 6, 
1638, a fine of ten pounds was discharged by reason of the fact that, for 
conscience sake, he had departed for Providence to join Mr. Williams. 
Coles was the man that, for drunkenness committed at Roxbury, was dis- 
franchised and was ordered to "weare about his necke, and soe to hange 
upon his outward garment, a D, made of redd cloath, and sett upon white; 
to contynue this for a yeare and not to leave it of at any tyme when hee 
comes amongst company, under the penalty of xls for the first oflfense & 
£5, & after to be punished by the Court as they thinke meete." On his 
arrival at Providence in 1638, Coles, who has a family and a considerable 
money, is welcomed by Mr. Williams and his name stands the fourth in 
the "Initial Deed" as a proprietor of the town lands. 

Into the midst of the Providence Company, with no organized gov- 
ernment, no laws and no oflScers, Samuel Gorton and Randall Holden, 
expelled from Aquidneck, come. Gorton's quick mind takes in the posi- 
tion at once and his impetuous spirit leads him to espouse the cause of the 
young, landless group, which stands opposed to Mr. Williams' policy. 
Gorton also applies for admission to the town-fellowship. In that desire, 
he is supported by John Greene, Robert Coles, Francis Weston and others, 
but a majority of the proprietary refuses him admission to that body. In 
a letter, written by William Arnold, dated May 25, 1641, quoted in "Docu- 
mentary History of Rhode Island," Chapin, pages 129-133, may be found, 
in clear and very emphatic language, the reasons for refusing Gorton and 
his company membership in the town-fellowship. It was about this time 



THE SETTLEMENT OF SHAWOMET 367 

that Mr. Williams wrote the historic letter concerning Gorton's acts and 
influence at Providence, already quoted. 

Samuel Gorton was a man whose purposes, once formed, were not 
easily shaken. He was well versed in law and could defend his rights by 
tongue, pen or gun. He saw the weaknesses and inadequacy of the Wil- 
liams government. Even Mr. Williams had confessed all in his letter to 
Governor Winthrop, "Yet the tide is too strong against us and I feare 
it will force me to little Patience." What he, Gorton, could not accom- 
plish by direct methods could be won by other means. He attempted two 
measures, both of which were, in a measure, successful. The first was to 
secure temporary occupation of territory by winning the friendly coopera- 
tion of some of the landed group. John Greene and Robert Coles were 
easily secured. Greene, a natural leader, and hatefully hostile to the Bay 
Colony, was dissatisfied with the Williams individualism and agnostic 
policy or no-policy at Providence. Cole had money, but no settled con- 
victions. Ezekiel Holliman fell an easy prey to Gorton. He had drawn a 
house lot, singularly enough, adjoining the present grounds of the First 
Baptist Church, but he never built a log cabin on it, locating at Pawtuxet, 
and the Pawtuxet men, as a body, were not warm supporters of Mr. Wil- 
liams, for were not William Harris and William Arnold and William 
Field of that body? 

The second move of Mr. Gorton was to furnish leadership to the 
hitherto unguided, disaffected, landless young men. Williams was by 
nature a peace-maker. Gorton had not a drop of pacifist blood in his 
veins and he hated Roger Williams. The hatred was mutual, Gorton and 
Williams, like oil and water, had no affinity. Gorton was a simon-pure 
religionist — a mystic — a soul-liberty man throughout. He wanted to 
establish a true civil liberty community. He preached these doctrines to 
the young men, within the bounds, but without the corporate life of the 
town. By his marvellous persuasive powers Gorton went about "bewitch- 
ing and bemadding poor Providence." He told the people they had no 
civil rights, no sovereignty, that Indian titles were of no value without the 
endorsement of the English Crown. Knowing the laws governing real 
estate titles, he told the people how valueless all their investments were, 
unless based on chartered securities. By such discussion fuel was added 
to the flames of a threatened destruction of Providence and the Planta- 
tions. 

Having won the friendship of Coles, Weston and Greene, Gorton and 
his associates from Aquidneck were allowed to sit down at Papaquina- 
paug, on the north side of the Pawtuxet. Gov. Winslow wrote, "But be- 
ing once housed, hee (Gorton) soon drew so great a party to him, as it 
was beyond the power of Mr. Williams and his party to drive them out, 
or to rule them there ; so as both parties came armed into the field, each 



368 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

against the other, and had fought it out, had not Mr. Wilhams used 
means for pacification." Gov. Winthrop wrote concerning the same 
event: "Those of Providence, being Anabaptists, were divided in 
judgment; some were only against baptizing of infants; others denied all 
magistracy and churches, etc., of which Gorton, who had lately been 
whipped at Aquiday, as is before mentioned, was their instructor and 
captain. These being too strong for the other party, provoked them by 
injuries, so as they came armed into the field, each against the other, but 
Mr. Williams pacified them for the present." 

The story of this uncivil riot at Providence, which occurred on the 
15th of November, 1641, as told by William Field, in which Samuel 
Gorton and his party at Providence were active participants, is an im- 
pressive illustration of the qualitj' of civil liberty and democracy estab- 
lished by Roger Williams. 

It seems that Francis W^eston, who came to Providence with Ezek- 
iel HoUiman "was found liable to pay or make satisfaction in cattle or 
commodities" for £15. Field and associates say: "When we went, 
orderly, openly, and in warrantable way to attach sum of the sayd Francis 
Weston's cattle, to drive them to the pound, to make him if it wer pos- 
sible to make satisfaction, which Samuel Gorton and his company getting 
notice off came and quarrelled with us in the street, and made a tumul- 
tuous hubbub, and although for our parts we had beforehand most prin- 
cipally armed ourselves with patience, peaceable to suffur as much injury 
as possibly bee borne to avoyd all sheding of blood. Yett som few drops 
of blood wer shedd on either side, and after the tumult was partly apeased 
and that wee went on orderly into the corne field, to drive the said cattle, 
the said Francis Weston, came furiously running with a flayell in his 
hand, and crjed out Help Sirs help, Sirs, they are going to steale my 
cattle and soe contd criing till Randall Holden, John Greene and some 
others came running, and made a great outcry and halloeing, and crying, 
theeves, theeves ; stealing cattle, stealing cattle, and soe the whole num- 
ber of their desperat company came riotously running and soe with much 
striveing and driving, hurried away the cattle, and then presumptuously 
answered they had made a rescue and that such should bee their practice, 
if any men at any time, in any case, attach anything that was theirs." 

This statement is a quotation from a letter "To the Honoured Gov- 
ernor of Massachusetts, Together with the Worshipful Assistants, and 
our loving Neighbours there," dated Providence, Nov. 17, 164 1, and 
signed by William Field, William Harris, William Carpenter, William 
Wickenden, William Reynolds, Thomas Hopkins, Hugh Bewitt, Joshua 
Winsor, Benedict Arnold, William Man, William Hunkings, and Robert 
West. This letter is an appeal to the Bay Colony "for the preservatione 



THE SETTLEMENT OF SHAWOMET 369 

of Humanity and mankinde to Consider our Conditione and lend us a 
neighbour-like helping hand and send us such assistance, our neces- 
sity urges us to be troublesome unto you to help us to bring them to 
satisfaction, and ease us of our burden of them." (Documentary History 
of Providence, pp. 1 34- 1 37). To this urgent request for assistance, the 
Bay answered that they could not render aid or protection unless "they 
did submit themselves to some jurisdiction, either Plimouth or ours." 
What followed later will appear in another connection. 

Soon after the "Hubbub" on the north side of the Pawtu.xet River, 
Samuel Gorton and his followers left the Pawtuxet Purchase and settled 
on land of Robert Coles, on the south side of the Pawtu.xet. This land 
was purchased of Soccononoco, a sub-sachem of the Xarragansetts, by 
Mr. Williams and sold by him to Coles, Jan. i, 1639. This sale of Coles 
was confirmed by Canonicus and Miantonomi, Feb. 10, 1641, and by him 
(Coles) sold to Gorton. But Gorton and his associates were ill at ease 
in the neighborhood of the Plantations. While at Pawtu.xet, Gorton 
wrote a long letter to the Bay Colony rebuking it for its sins and short- 
comings, concluding with, "Countrymen (we can but call you so) though 
we find your carriage to be far worse than the Indians." 

Gorton had spent six years in New England, and had tested the 
Puritan theocracy of Boston, the Pilgrim liberalism in Democracy at 
Plymouth, the broader civil and religious freedom of Aquidneck, and 
the narrower policy and unlicensed liberty of the Plantations. None of 
them are suited to this "most strenuous, the most irrepressible of all the 
dissenters from Massachusetts Puritanism, — in other words the most 
stentorian-voiced of all the New England heralds of toleration." The 
governments of Plyinouth had banished Gorton for heresy and sedition, 
Aquidneck had whipped and banished him for setting at defiance all 
government, magistracy and courts of justice, Providence calls him "a 
railing and turbulent person," "a ring-leader unto the breach of peace," 
etc., etc., and refuses him membership in the civil community. Gorton 
speaking for himself, says : "We thought it meet for the possession of 
our peace, together with the compassion we had for our wives and little 
ones, to leave the houses and the rest of our labors lying near unto these 
(Arnolds, Cole and Carpenter) their pretended subjects and remove to 
territory where there could be no claim thereto or pretense to any." Gor- 
ton was advised that some in the Bay Colony intended to take his life 
if he staid in New England, and was urged to join the Dutch in New 
York, but he refused to go under the government of any foreign prince, 
"as he had neither been false to his King, nor country, nor to his con- 
science." 

During his stay at Providence, Gorton had undoubtedly carefully 
surveyed the lands on the south, with a fine frontage on Sowams or 

R 1-24 



370 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

Narragansett Bay. It was a most attractive territory, which, once 
possessed, would furnish to him and his associates an opportunity to show 
before men their conception of a civil state, based on freedom in religious 
opinions and worship. The Indians called the lands Shawomet. Its 
bounds were from Copassuatuxett Cove "uppon the west syde of that 
part of the sea called Sowhames Bay," * * * "and the outermost 
point of that neck of land called Shawhomett ;" "in a straight line west- 
ward twenty miles." Its modern bounds are from Pawtuxet Falls to 
Warwick Xeck Light, and twenty miles inland to the Connecticut line, 
including the greater part of the present towns of Warwick and Coventry. 
The purchasers were Randall Holden, John Greene, John Wickes, Francis 
Weston, Samuel Gorton, Richard Waterman, John Warner, Richard 
Carder, Robert Potter, Sampson Shotten. and William Wuddall. The 
deed was signed on the I2th of Januar>', 1643, by Miantonomi, chief 
sachem of the Xarragansetts and witnessed by Pumham, the local sachem 
of Shawomet. The sum paid was 144 fathoms of wampum. The cost in 
United States currency would be about $175. The Indian deed of Potow- 
omut was executed July 13, 1654 in favor of Randall Holden and Ezek- 
iel Holliman. This point of land, though physically detached from War- 
wick is now a part of that town. 

The sale of the large territory of Shawomet to Gorton and his asso- 
ciates by Miantonomi was very offensive to the magistrates of the Bay 
Colony as well as to the Commissioners of the United Colonies. The 
hazy claims of Massachusetts to the Narragansett lands, and the troubles 
at Providence, growing out of the revolt of the Pawtuxet purchasers, 
emboldened the Bay to make a new claim for the possession of Warwick 
and to charge Miantonomi with treason to that colony, "in mischievous 
plotts to roote out the Body of the English Nation, purchasing the ayde 
of all the Indians by guifts, threats and other allurements to their pty." 
This bitter and unreasonable prejudice against Miantonomi was cherished 
by the Colonial Commissioners, of whom Governor John Winthrop of 
Massachusetts was president. While the Shawomet sale is not mentioned 
in the accusations against the sachem, it was well understood that this 
act lay at the bottom of the charges against the life of the sachem. 

The settlement at Shawomet was begun late in 1642, after the "Hub- 
bub" at Pawtuxet. when Gorton and a few others, including John Wickes 
and Randall Holden, located on the Indian lands at the head of Warwick 
Cove. After the purchase in 1643 they formed an association for civil 
government by arbitration and adopted a body of rules or "Town Orders," 
which they agreed to observe. They chose officers to carry on their gov- 
ernment as outlined in their agreement. Gorton and his little band who 
had begun to build their cabins at Warwick Cove found themselves in a 



THE SETTLEMENT OF SHAWOMET 371 

"tight fix." Pumham, the local sachem of Shawomet, denied having given 
consent to the sale of that territory and he with Socononoco, an associate 
sub-sachem, submitted themselves and their lands to the jurisdiction of 
Massachusetts Colony. Massachusetts accepted the control of the terri- 
tory and the protection of the Indians at Shawomet, thereby supporting 
the claim that the local chiefs had land rights superior to the rights of 
Canonicus and Miantonomi. This surrender occurred June 22, 1643, and 
gave to the Bay Colony the pretext, at least, of control over the territory 
of Shawomet. The Arnolds, Carpenter and Cole, following the appeal 
of the Pawtuxet purchasers, had already submitted themselves and their 
territory to the Massachusetts government, throwing off their allegiance 
to Providence, of which they were at that time proprietary inhabitants. 
That event occurred in 1642, and by it and the Pumham-Socononoco sub- 
mission, Massachusetts assumed control of a portion of the Pawtuxet 
Purchase and the whole of Shawomet, from the Pawtuxet River on the 
north to the Greenwich Bay on the south. Gorton had been refused ad- 
mission into Providence by the Proprietors, had been driven from Papa- 
quinapaug, and was meditating planting at Shawomet, when the Bay 
Colony issued the following warrant, dated the 28th of the 8th, 1642, 
sending it to the Gortonoges by their new officer at Pawtuxet, William 
Arnold: 

Massachusetts to our neighbors of Providence : 

Whereas William Arnold of Pawtuxet and Robert Cole, and others, 
have lately put themselves and their families, lands and estates, under the 
protection and government of this jurisdiction, and have since complained 
to us, that you have since (upon pretence of a late purchase from the 
Indians ) gone about to deprive them of their lawful interest, confirmed 
by four years possession, and otherwise to molest them. We thought 
good, therefore, to write to you on their behalf to give you notice that 
they and their lands, &c., being under our jurisdiction, we are to main- 
tain them in their law full rights. If therefore you have any just title 
to anything they possess, you may proceed against them in our Court, 
where you shall have equall justice. But if you shall proceed to any 
violence, you must not blaim us, if we shall take a like course to right 
them. 

Jo. WiNTHROP, Governor, 
Tho. Dudley, 
Ri. Bellingham, 
Inc Nowell. 

Gorton writes accusing Massachusetts of persecution, "of having 
former experience abundantly of their unkind and inhuman dealing with 
us, yea, towards our wives and children, when ourselves were sometimes 
in banishments, and sometimes in prison, and irons (by them) before." 
He charges the authorities with a purjjose "to take our lives" as well as 



372 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

'•lively hood," claims their removal to another part of Narragansett Bay, 
"where none of the English nor other nations had anything to do, but 
only Indians, the true natives, of whom we bought a parcell of land, 
called Shaw-omet, not only of Myantonomy. chief sachem or prince of 
those parts of the country, but also with the free consent of the inhab- 
itants of the place." Gorton denies the jurisdiction of the Bay Colony, 
claimed under the Pumhani submission of persons and property, and ap- 
peals "to the laws and government of this kingdom of England unto 
which we ever willingly acknowledge ourselves to be loyal subjects, and 
therefore could not allow ourselves to be intrenched upon by our fellow 
subjects, further than the laws of our King and State doth allow." In 
the spring of 1643, Gorton and a few other purchasers took up land on 
the east shore of Warwick Cove and began the settlement of the Shaw- 
omet Purchase, clearing the land of heavy timber, building log cabins 
and planting corn. An eventless spring and summer at the new planta- 
tion are followed by an eventful autumn, as the records show. The 
Gortonoges, as they were called by the Indians, were not in good repute 
by the chiefs and natives of Shawomet, nor by the great majority of 
English settlers at Pawtuxet and Providence. The Arnolds, William and 
Benedict, who have submitted to the government of the Bay Colony, are 
made local officers of peace at Pawtuxet, and, earlier or a little later, 
bought lands, a mile in width, on the south side of the Pawtuxet River, 
as far west as Toskeunke (Pontiac), holding titles irStn Socononoco, the 
Pawtuxet sub-chief, who, with Pumham, had already given themselves 
and their lands to the Bay Colony, probably at the instance and under 
the influence of the Arnolds, and Carpenter and Rhodes, sons-in-law of 
William Arnold. Gorton and his friends are painfully conscious of the 
uilneighborly attitude of their nearest neighbors at Pawtuxet and Prov- 
idence and of the fixed purpose of the Bay Colony to dispossess them of 
their Shawomet estate. Gorton relates that a rumor has come to them 
that "Massachusetts was sending out an army of men to cut us off, * * 
* having show of nothing against us, but only our Religion." He also 
states that Pumham and Socononoco have been influenced by the Massa- 
chusetts "Agents," meaning the Arnolds, to withdraw their allegiance 
from their "law full and natural Prince Myantonomy" and become sub- 
jects of Massachusetts. 

On the twelfth of September, 1643, a warrant was issued by the Gen- 
eral Court, at Boston, directed to "Our Neighbors, Master Samuel Gorton, 
John Wickes, Randall Holden, Robert Potter, Francis Weston, Richard 
Carder, John Warner, and William Waddle," in which it is declared that 
two Indian sachems, subjects of that Colony, have complained "of some 
injurious and unjust dealing, toward them by your selves," and calling 



THE SETTLEMENT OF SHAWOMET 373 

them to attend a hearing of the matter at Boston, safe conduct for "free 
egresse & regresse" being promised. The messenger, who brought the 
paper, received a verbal reply from Mr. Gorton, stating that the Shaw- 
omet planters did not recognize the jurisdiction of any, "but only the 
state and government of old England, who only had right unto us, and 
from whom we doubted not but in due season we should receive direction, 
for the well ordering of us in all civil respects." The following week, 
Samuel Gorton addressed a characteristic letter "to the great and hon- 
oured Idol Generall now set up in the Massachusetts." This letter is 
one of the best specimens of the polemic literature of that period. Its 
logic is keen, its sarcasm cutting. In it appears the bold, defiant attitude 
of the townsmen and their chivalrous sentiments for the protection of 
their women and their born and unborn babes. The letter breathes de- 
fiance to their Indian accusers and rehearses their villanies, committed on 
the property and families of the accused. The metaphysical idealist is 
lost in the consummate pleader for human rights and respect for ultimate 
sources of justice. The Bay Colony is not spared the rod of correction 
for refusing English subjects inalienable rights and for fraudulent claims 
for civil jurisdiction over a foreign territory. Gorton's letter is certainly 
a master weapon both of offensive and defensive warfare, and it is no 
wonder that it stirred even the dispassionate Winthrop to anger and the 
Council of the Colony to plan a speedy revenge. Three broad charges 
now confront the Shawomet defenders : 

1. Their reproachful and reviling speeches of the government and 
magistrates of Massachusetts. 

2. Their reviling language against magistracy itself and all civil 
power. 

3. Their blasphemous speeches against the holy things of God." 

It is evident that a reverend Massachusetts heresy-hunting theologian 
wrote the accusations. 

September 19, 1643, a notice was sent to Shawomet that they would 
soon send commissioners "to lay open the charges against you and to 
hear your Reasons and Allegations, and thereupon to receive such satis- 
faction from you as shall appeare in justice to be due." A guard was also 
to be sent, "for their safety against any violence, * * * or to right 
ourselves and our people, by force of arms." Benedict Arnold of Paw- 
tuxet advised the movements of the Massachusetts peace embassy, con- 
sisting of the Commissioners, Captain George Cooke, Captain Humphrey 
Atherton and Edward Johnson, and a body of forty soldiers. While on 
their way to Shawomet, Gorton sent to the Commissioners a message 
that if they came "in way of neighborhood and friendship" they would 
be welcome, but they were warned "not to set foot upon our lands in any 



374 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

hostile way." The letter was one of friendship towards friends and of 
courageous defiance towards an enemy.' '"Mistake us not * * * if 
you come to treat with us in ways of equity and peace (together there- 
with, shaking a rod over our heads in a band of soldiers) be you assured 
we have passed our childhood and nonnage in that point, and are under 
commission of the great God, not to be children in understanding, neither 
in courage, but to quit ourselves as men." The reply of the Commission- 
ers indicated that they had come on an errand of mercy "to preserve their 
lives and liberties" from "eternall ruine of them and theirs," since an 
evil spirit had possessed one or two of them, leading to "monstrous" and 
"desperate evils." The embassy replied, hoping to bring them to repent- 
ance, but, in case of failure, "we shall looke upon them as men fitted for 
the slaughter." This message so frightened the women and children that 
they fled from their cabins, some to the woods, others to the Pawtuxet 
planters or to the Indian wigwams, for safety. The wives of John Greene 
and Robert Potter died from fright and exposure. While Mr. Gorton 
was conducting his wife, then great with child, to a boat, he spied the 
soldiers in the woods, calling out to them to keep out of the range of the 
muskets of the settlers in his block-house, which they had fortified for 
defense. A parley between the Shawomet men and the Boston party 
was proposed and after some debate was acceded to, and four Provi- 
dence men, presumably Chad Brown, Thomas Olney, William Field and 
William Wickenden, were witnesses to the interview. The Boston men 
stated that the Shawomet men "had done some wrong unto certain of 
their subjects," presumably Pumham and others of the Shawomets, that 
they held blasphemous errors of which they must repent or be carried 
to Boston for trial or be put to death by the sword, and their property 
seized to defray the charges of the Commission. The Shawomet men 
refused to yield to the unreasonable and unwarranted demands of the 
Commissioners and proposed to appeal to "the honourable State of Eng- 
land" in all things charged against them. This plan the Boston men re- 
fused to accept, when Gorton and his little band offered to submit the 
whole business to arbitration, "by indifferent men, mutually chosen in the 
countrev. ingaging our goods, our lands & our persons to make full satis- 
faction for anything that could be brought in or appeare against us." 
This plan seemed so reasonable to Captain Cooke and the rest that a 
truce was agreed upon and a messenger was sent to Boston to learn the 
views of Governor Winthrop and the Council. The four Providence 
men, witnesses to the parley, wrote to Gov. Winthrop, entreating him to 
accept the proposal of arbitration. Had this plan been adopted a great 
injustice would have been averted and a Colonial crime avoided. 

The Providence men, with Chad Brown at the head, cannot be accused 
of an excess of friendship towards Gorton for had he not "bemadded 



THE SETTLEMENT OF SHAWOMET 375 

poor Providence" of late, and yet they wrote, "Oh, how grievous would it 
be (we hope to you) if one man should be slaine, considering the great- 
est monarch in the world cannot make a man, especially grievous seeing 
they offer terms of peace." In this letter, the Providence men recited the 
charges of the Commission and the replies of the Shawomet men, assur- 
ing the Bay Council of the honesty and honor of the accused and hoping 
that "so faire Propositions * * * will worke your affections to the 
utmost end of preventing blood spilling." The Commissioners also wrote 
to their government advising the acceptance of the Shawomet proposal. 
Gorton relates that during the truce, while the messenger was on his 
journey to and from Boston, the soldiers broke into their houses, took 
away writings from their desks, took their bedding for the soldiers, and 
killed their cattle for themselves and the Indians with them. They also 
insulted and assaulted some friends who had come to their aid during the 
truce, firing muskets at or near them as they left in their boats. 

The messenger, carrying the message of the Commission and the 
letter of the Providence party, reached Boston while the Committee 
chosen by the General Court were in session, discussing the event of the 
murder of Miantonomi. This Committee was a large one, consisting of 
the Governor and other general officers of the Bay and the Deputies of 
Boston, Charlestown, Cambridge, Roxbury and Dorchester, of which 
Governor John Winthrop was chairman. It was a custom in the Bay 
Colony to call in the ministers to advise with committees on important 
Colonial affairs, and Winthrop tells us that "calling into us five or six 
of the elders who were near at hand we considered of the motion." It is 
worth our while to note the distinguished men who sat in Council to 
deliberate and decide the Shawomet proposal. John Winthrop, the "wor- 
shipful friend" of Roger Williams, Governor of the Bay, presided. His 
son, John Jr., later Governor of Connecticut, sat by his side. John Endi- 
cott of Salem was Deputy Governor. Thomas Dudley and Richard Bil- 
lingham, the three chosen governors later, sat in the court. Other great 
names were Richard Saltonstall, Simon Bradstreet, Rev. John Wilson, 
Increase Nowell, Rev. John Cotton, Israel Stoughton, William Pinchon. 
These, with a dozen or more deputies, constituted a court of no small 
magnitude for the consideration of a case involving questions, colonial, 
civil, ecclesiastical and military. No question of so much importance had 
hitherto occupied the attention of the magistrates and elders of Massa- 
chusetts Bay. The questions involved were these : 

a. Has the Bay Colony rights at Shawomet, superior to and sub- 
versive of the purchasers of Shawomet from Miantonomi ? 

b. Have the Shawomet planters violated any laws of civil procedure 
which the Bay Colony has any right to consider or regulate? 



3/6 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

f. Can an ecclesiastical or theological tenet or expression of a non- 
resident of the Bay, though contrary to the opinions of the magistrates 
and elders of the Bay, be justifiably reviewed or punished by the Bay? 

d. Is a commission of a militan^ nature a peace-making or a war- 
making force intended by arms to terrorize or destroy the Shawomet 
settlement ? 

e. Is not the Shawomet proposal a just, reasonable and proper way 
of settlement of any and all matters affecting the relations of the Bay 
Colony and the Shawomet Plantation ? 

/. Is arbitration and an English Referendum or the Sword the 
Qiristian way of settlement of a disputed claim? 

These and other considerations were involved in the conmiunications 
sent from Shawomet on October the second, 1643, to the Grand Com- 
mittee of the Bay, in session at Boston. This Colonio-clerical body at- 
tends at once to the message. The gravity of a situation involving blood- 
shed and civil war would seem to demand days and weeks of considera- 
tion, discussion, prayer for Divine guidance. But, "the King's business 
demands dispatch" as does the Bay's. "Delay is dangerous" and in a 
few hasty hours, in a single day, this body of eminent men in Church and 
State have returned their solemn and unanimous verdict as to Shawomet 
and the course of action to be taken. Let the "worshipful" Governor 
Winthrop, President of this Council of the Bay speak, under date of 
October third, 1643, the day following that on which the communications 
from Shawomet were dispatched to Boston. He addresses his letter to 
"Neighbours .\t Providence," Chad Brown and others at .Shawomet. 
The letter is too long to be quoted, but a summary of it in Governor 
Winthrop's Diary sets forth the justicial and judicial attitude of the Bay. 
He says : 

We agreed that it was neither seasonable nor reasonable, neither safe 
nor honorable, for us to accept of such a proposition ; 

( 1 ) Because they would never offer us any terms of peace before 
we had sent our soldiers. 

(2) Because the ground of it was false, for we were not parties 
in the case between the Indians and them, but the proper judges, they 
being all within our jurisdiction by the Indians and English their own 
grant. 

(3) They were no state, but a few fugitives living without law or 
government, and so not honorable for us to join with them in such a 
course. 

(4) The parties to whom they would refer it unto were such as 
were rejected by us and all the governments in the country, and besides, 
not men likely to be equal to us, or able to judge of the cause. 

(5) Their blasphemous and reviling writings, etc., were not mat- 
ters fit to be compounded by arbitrament, but to be purged away only by 
repentance and public satisfaction, or else by public punishment. 



THE SETTLEMENT OF SHAWOMET 377 

And lastly, the commission and instructions being given them by the 
General Court (the Bay) it was not in our power to alter them. 

The messenger returned from Boston, probably on Wednesday, 
Oct. 4, with orders to the Commissioners to proceed in the execution of 
their instructions, as the proposal for arbitration had been dismissed. 
The truce was now at an end, with a refusal to continue the parley and 
an order to the Providence men not to hold further intercourse with the 
Gortonians, who were now gathered in Gorton's house, which had been 
fortified and made ready for defence. The first act of the soldiers was 
to seize eighty head of cattle and other stock and property belonging to 
the settlers and turning all over to William Arnold of Pawtuxet, now a 
subject of the Bay Colony. The siege of the Gorton log-house fort was 
begim on Thursday, October 5th, and continued until Sunday, October 
8tli, the soldiers firing musket shot at the Gorton citadel, but injuring no 
one of the occupants, who had not fired a single shot at their assailants. 
In order to show their allegiance to the government of England, the 
English colors were hung out, at which the Bay soldiers shot more vio- 
lently, shooting the colors, through and through, many times. 

On Sunday an attempt was made to set the garrison house on fire, 
which failed. The Commissioners sent to Boston for more troops. While 
the soldiers were drawing nearer the castle, four days had passed and 
Gorton sa.w that he could not escape nor long hold out as against so 
unequal a force, when he sought a parley with the enemy and consented 
to go to Boston with the Commissioners provided they could go as "free 
men and neighbors," and not as captives. Captain Cooke consented and 
seemed joyful that the siege had come to an end. Gorton says, "the Cap- 
tain desired to see our house, which request we lovingly enbraced think- 
ing he intended to refresh himself and his soldiers with such provisions 
as we had." Contrary to agreement, Cooke seized the arms of the 
defendants, and treated them as captives, leaving the house and goods to 
be pillaged by the Indians. He also directed the soldiers to punish the 
captives if they made any trouble or attempted to escape on the journey 
to Boston. Besides the cattle, swine and goats seized, the soldiers took all 
the corn and other provisions which the settlers had provided for the 
support of their families. 

The victorious army entered Boston in triumph, with their captured 
men and booty, on Friday, October the 13th, 1643, and were at once 
jailed to await their trial. A warrant was issued by the Commissioners 
for the arrest of John Greene, Sen., who had escaped, and for his son, 
John, Jr., Richard Waterman and Nicholas Power, who were still at 
large. The Arnolds, Carpenter, Chasmore and Hawksworth were made 
officers to arrest one or all of these persons, seize their cattle and other 



378 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

property and report to Boston. On Sunday, October 15, the prisoners 
refused to attend services at the First Church, but the magistrates made 
it compulsory, not until after they had given their promise that Gorton 
might have liberty to speak if he desired, after the sermon. Rev. John 
Cotton preached "at them" about Demetrius and the silver shrines at 
Ephesus, after which, Gorton, with his unusually keen mind and thorough 
knowledge of the Bible, gave a sharp rejoinder to the sermon, to the great 
scandal of the magistrates and people of the Bay Colony. Gorton was a 
safe match for any disputant in the ecclesiastical or civil field of debate. 
On Tuesday, October 15, the prisoners, ten in number, were brought 
before the General Court for trial. Their names were Samuel Gorton, 
Randall Holden, John Wickes (Weeks), Richard Carder, Robert Potter, 
John Warner, William Waddell, Francis Weston, Richard Waterman and 
Nicholas Power. Sampson Shotten, one of the captives, had died and the 
two John Greenes, father and son, had escaped and were in hiding, on 
Conanicut Island. The charges against Samuel Gorton and company are 
thus stated in the Court records: 

Upon much examin.\tion & serious consideration of yor writ- 
ings, WITH VOR ANSWERS ABOUT THEM, WEE DO CHARGE YOU TO BEE A BLAS- 
PHEMUS ENEMY OF THE TRUE RELIGION OF OR LORD JeSUS ChRIST & HiS 
HOLY ORDINANCES, & ALSO OF ALL CIVILL AUTHORITY AMONG THE PEOPLE 
OF God, & PERTICULERLY IN THIS JURISDICTION. 

The Gorton case was one of the most celebrated before the Bay 
courts in Colonial days and deserves careful study. The Court consisted 
of the men already named, with Governor John Winthrop presiding. It 
was held at Boston and the gravity of the charges secured a full attend- 
ance of all the members. The charge of blasphemy especially interested 
the Puritan elders. In order that any claim of the prisoners for protec- 
tion under the jurisdiction of Plymouth might be prevented, the Court 
announced that Plymouth had yielded its power, in this case, to the Bay. 
The Court also declared that if the defendants were not under their juris- 
diction and no other, then the Bay had no redress for wrongs committed 
and must either resort to arms as a remedy, or submit to the insults and 
injuries heaped upon the Colony. A second reading of the charges re- 
veals the whole animus of the trial. In them the Bay does not claim 
jurisdiction under Pumham's submission of his tribe and properties to 
Massachusetts. The Bay does not deny the validity of the deed of 
Miantonomi, nor does it question the integrity of the transaction, trans- 
ferring Shawomet to Gorton and his company. The money had been 
paid, the land was theirs and two years later it was so declared by the 
English government, to which Gorton had, at the outset, proposed to 
submit his case for decision. Governor Winslow of Plymouth comes to 



THE SETTLEMENT OF SHAWOMET 379 

the defence of the Bay by saying, "And if any ask by what authority they 
went out of their own government to do such an act, know that his former 
seditious and turbulent carriage in all parts where he came, as Plymouth, 
Rhode Island, a place of greatest liberty. Providence, that place which 
relieved him in that his so great extremity, and his so desperate close 
with so dangerous and potent enemies, and at a time of such conspiracy 
by the same Indians * * * together with his notorious contempt of 
all civil government, as well as that particular and his blasphemies against 
God, needlessly manifested in his letters to them" (of Massachusetts). 
But no one of Winslow's pleadings appear in the indictment. The charges 
are clear and explicit, — blasphemous opinions and utterances, accounta- 
bility for which is due the Bay: and the trial is on for their lives. 

At the trial, no one complained of injury committed or wrong done, 
not a person but the ministers and magistrates appeared against any one 
of the accused. Out of the writings of Gorton the magistrates framed 
twenty-six gross opinions. Gorton denied the construction they had given 
his writings and therefore was commanded by Ex-Gov. Dudley to be silent 
or put in irons. Four questions were propounded by the Court upon 
which Gorton was to answer for his life: 

1. Whether the Fathers, who died before Christ was born of the 
Virgin Mary, were justified and saved only by the blood which he shed, 
and the death which he suffered after his incarnation! 

2. Whether the only price of our redemption, were not the death 
of Qirist upon the Cross, with the rest of his sufferings and obediences 
in the time of his life here, after he was born of the Virgin Mary ! 

3. Who is that God whom he thinks we serve ? 

4. What he means, when he saith, "We worship the star of our god 
Remphan, Chion, Aloloch?" 

Mr. Gorton made written replies to these theological questions and 
gave them to the Court. Governor Winthrop gave his assent to the 
answers, which angered Dudley, but Bradstreet, more liberal, at Gorton's 
request, desired that no more questions be put to him, unless he could be 
free to answer them. Here the trial ended, the case was closed and the 
verdict rendered. Heresy was punishable with prison or banishment, 
blasphemy by death, by Colonial law. All the magistrates but three con- 
demned Gorton to die for blasphemy. With that sentence the elders were 
in full'accord. But the verdict of the deputies, the representatives of the 
people, refused their assent to the state murder of a man of Gorton's 
spirit and character, and their voice by a majority of two saved the Bay 
Colony "the deep damnation of his taking off." The people of Boston 
were weary of heresy hunting and their sympathies were strongly on the 
side of the accused. Some punishment must be inflicted to justify the 



38o HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

General Court and save the dignity and honor of the Puritan Church and 
State. To that end Gorton was ordered to be confined at Charlestown, 
to be set at work, and to wear such iron chains as would prevent his escape 
until the Court should order his release. If he should break jail or utter 
"blasphemous or abominable heresies," a new trial and execution would 
ensue. The same sentence was imposed on John Wickes, Randall Hold- 
en, Robert Potter, Richard Carder, Francis Weston and John Warner, 
but they were sent to other towns for confinement. Waddell remained at 
large at Watertown, Waterman was dismissed with a fine and Power 
with an admonition. To add to the burden of imprisonment and the 
deprivation of their social and civil rights, the cattle of the convicted 
men were appraised and sold to meet the cost of the seizure and trial, the 
prisoners refusing to name two of the five appraisers of their property. 
The total expenses to the captives was about £i6o. Before their con- 
finement the seven men in chains were paraded in a body, before the 
congregation at Rev. John Cotton's lecture, as a warning to other heretics 
and a lesson to their sympathizers. Gorton afterwards accused Cotton 
of advising in a sermon that he be starved to death. The Shawomet 
men were kept in prison, with few comforts, at hard labor, with chains 
on their limbs to prevent their escape, at the same time expressing the 
heresies for which they were condemned. On March 7, 1643-4, by the 
order of the General Court, they were set free and banished from all 
places in the government of the Bay, on penalty of death if found after 
fourteen days. Lest a stay in Boston would corrupt its Puritan purity. 
Gov. Winthrop ordered them to leave within two hours and forbade their 
stay at their own houses on their own land at Shawomet. Gorton and 
his associates joined their families at Aquidneck, where they were wel- 
comed by a liberal-minded, conscience-loving people, who had set up and 
maintained the principles of civil and religious liberty since 1638. Shaw- 
omet remained a deserted settlement until 1647, when the scattered pur- 
chasers returned to their possessions, under the protection of the English 
Crown and the Charter which Roger Williams had brought from Eng- 
land, in 1644. 

A judicial review of this historic case is difficult, since much evidence 
as to facts and conditions is wanting. It must be admitted that the title 
to Shawomet rested in Canonicus and Miantonomi, chief sachems of the 
Narragansett lands, of which Shawomet was a part, that the sale to 
Gorton and his associates of the large territory, five miles wide and 
twenty long, was a legitimate and legal one, and that the Bay Colony 
had no possible claim to any part of these lands growing out of the sub- 
mission of Pumham and Socononoco to the Bay. This right was con- 
ceded by the Bay, for no charge of trespass or of fraudulent title to 
Shawomet lands appears in the certified statement. Had they claimed 



THE SETTLEMENT OF SHAWOMET 381 

the rights of ownership and civi! jurisdiction, the siege, capture and im- 
prisonment might have been justifiable. Mr. Charles Deane, an historical 
author and student of New England Colonial history, says of the Bay 
Colony: "Their whole conduct towards Gorton and his companions, 
from about the period of their removal to Shawomet until their summary 
banishment from the Massachusetts Colony, was atrocious." Judge 
George A. Brayton, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Rhode Island, 
in his story of the planting of Warwick, declared, "The conduct of the 
General Court of Massachusetts, towards Gorton and his associates at 
Shawomet, was uncalled for, unjust, outrageously, tyrannically so, to the 
great injury and damage of the complainants and a feeling that it required 
redress at the hands of the home government (England)." Gov. Arnold 
wrote, at the end of his story of the Shawomet tragedy: "Tlnus ended 
these atrocious proceedings, which form one of the darkest pages in the 
history of Massachusetts." 

It would be manifestly unjust to the General Court of the Bay to 
charge the magistrates with malicious persecution of Gorton. It is fair 
to say that Gorton had won for himself an unsavory reputation at Boston, 
by reason of his lawsuits at Plymouth and Aquidneck and the disturb- 
ances he had occasioned at Providence and Pawtuxet, by which he had 
won the harsh censure of Roger Williams and the hostilities of the 
Arnold group. Gov. Winthrop had been advised of all these events and 
Wilson and Cotton could scent heresy afar off, even if its exponents were 
hidden in the thick forests beyond tli^ Pawtuxet. To the Bay Colony, 
Gorton was the heresiarch of all New England in civil and religious 
matters. From what he had publicly taught and done he seemed to be a 
dangerous leader to be abroad, inoculating the new societies with the 
poison of his supposedly obnoxious opinions. Gorton was a positive man, 
a man of great abilities, a man of strong convictions, a man of physical 
and moral courage. He was far in advance of his age in his views as to 
civil government. He held a judicial attitude of mind in matters 
civil and doctrinal. He was an idealist, a metaphysician — men never 
understood by their own generation, the heralds of principles and events, 
hidden in the mists of futurity. It is doubtful if any men of that day 
understood Gorton, while most feared him. There were two effectual 
ways of ridding society of such dangerous men — the gallows or banish- 
ment, the former an efficient cure-all. An Indian deed of forest lands 
to a malefactor was no deterrent in the extermination of blasphemy. 
The United Colonies had just formed a union to destroy Indian devils — 
why might it not cast out all other devils lurking in the Narragansett 
forests, — ^forests claimed at one and the same time by Plymouth, Massa- 
chusetts Bay, Connecticut and Providence. Log cabins and squatter 
settlers were only appurtenances to forests, concerning which and their 



382 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

absolute personal rights a mythical conception prevailed. The absence of 
Roger Williams in England was a relief to the men of the Bay in for- 
mulating their charge, for with heretical opinions at the fore there could 
be no doubt of Mr. Williams' attitude in advancing to the defence of his 
earlier hateful enemy. The men of the Bay in authority were mighty. 
They saw the difficulty they would be in in attempting to establish a land 
claim over Shawomet. Blasphemy was a Colonial Devil that must be 
cast out. Human life was of small account, with heresy in the balances. 
Proofs were abundant. Gov. Winthrop and the magistrates expected to 
hang Gorton and were disappointed. To them it was a solemn duty to 
God and men to relieve the world of a public danger by a short cut, — the 
gibbet. Like the axe, it was an effectual instrument of relief, though not 
so sharp. While such reasoning may palliate the harshly unjust treatment, 
it does not excuse the offence. Winthrop, Endicott, Dudley, Cooke, 
Atherton, Wilson, Cotton, et al., were in the wrong, and some of them lived 
to repent of it. Listen to Gorton, when visited by the Narragansett 
chiefs to console him in his trials and banishment : "We made answer unto 
them, that for our parts, we were not discouraged in anything that had 
befallen us, for we were subjects to such a noble state in old England, 
that however we were far off from our King and State, yet we doubted 
not but in due time, we should have redress ; and in the meantime we 
were resolved to undergo it with patience, and in what way we could, 
labour with our hands for the preservation of our wives and children. 
The answer they made unto us was this, that they thought we belonged to 
a better master than the Massachusetts did." By reason of the trials 
and sacrifices of Gorton and his associates, Shawomet has become a name 
not only memorable but consecrated by the heroism, the suffering and the 
Christian patience of these men and women of the early time. In "Sim- 
plicities Defense Against Seven-Headed Policy, or a True Complaint 
of a Peaceable People * * * Against Cruel Persecutors, United in 
Church Government in those parts," ct al., Gorton has told the story of 
his and his people's sufferings, in a manner and spirit noble. Christian. By 
reading it, one becomes convinced of the great busy heart, the nobility of 
spirit and the intellectual vigor of Samuel Gorton, the chief of the twelve 
founders of Warwick. 

In the autumn of 1644 or the early months of 1645, Samuel Gorton 
and Randall Holden and John Greene sailed from Manhattan for Eng- 
land to lay the situation of the Shawomet settlers before the English 
Commissioner of Plantations, of whom the Earl of Warwick was Gov- 
ernor and Judge. Before their sailing Gorton was invited to an Indian 
Council of the Narragansetts, presided over by Canonicus, Pessicus and 
Mixan, chief sachems. He was advised of the loyalty of the Indians 
and was told that thev were desirous of submitting as a tribe unto the 



THE SETTLEMENT OF SHAWOMET 383 

government and protection "of that Honorable State of Old England." 
Yielding to their desires, expressing the wishes of the whole of the great 
tribe, Gorton drew up the paper which gave over "ourselves, peoples, 
lands, rights, inheritances, and possessions whatsoever, in ourselves and 
in our heirs successively forever unto the protection, care and govern- 
ment of that Worthy and Royal Prince, Charles, King of Great 
Britain and Ireland, his heirs and successors forever." This voluntary 
submission was signed by Pessicus, chief sachem and successor of Mian- 
tonomi, by Canonicus, associate sachem, and Mixan, son of Canonicus, 
under date of April 19. 1644. Gorton, Wickes, Holden and Warner were 
chosen as the Indians' agents to represent them before the King. 

The-Shawomet event had a singular influence on the minds of the 
Narragansetts, leading them to believe that as Gorton and his associates 
in capture had returned from Boston alive that they belonged to a super- 
ior class or race from the English of Massachusetts. They called the Bay 
people Wattaconoges, or coat men, or those who wore clothes, and the 
Gorton company Gortonoges. They concluded that the Gortonoges were 
a mightier people than the Wattaconoges and that the Massachusetts 
authorities had not slain them, for fear of an invasion of the stronger men 
from England, who would come over in large numbers and put the Bay 
people to death. Believing that the English government was in the hands 
of the Gortonoges, they readily consented to submit to it. The Shawomet 
delegates spent over a year in England before their mission was concluded. 
On the sixteenth of May, 1646, they were made glad by an order signed 
by thirteen Commissioners of Plantations, sitting at Westminster, direct- 
ing the Bay to allow all who desire, "freely and quietly to live and plant 
upon Shawomet and such other parts of the said tract of land mentioned 
in our Charter (1644) * * * without extending your jurisdiction 
to any part thereof or otherwise disquieting them in their consciences or 
civil peace, or interrupting them in their possessions." It was also ordered 
that Gorton, Holden and Greene should be allowed a safe passage from 
Boston to Shawomet. These orders were made general for all other 
Governors and Colonies in New England. Shawomet, through Gorton, 
Holden and Greene, as its advocates, won in the first battle before the 
English Court. Not only were the Gortonoges allowed to return to their 
properties, but their near neighbors and friends, the Narragansetts, had 
been won to their side and were never after allies of the Bay Colony. 

Holden returned with the Order of the English Commissioners, ar- 
riving in Boston, September 13, 1646, Gorton remaining in England for 
two years. On receipt of the order at Boston, Edward Winslow of 
Plymouth was sent to England to inquire into the reasons of the order 
as to Shawomet and its occupants. Winslow here met Gorton as an 
opponent and answered his claims so satisfactorily that the final answer 



384 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

was that Gorton and his associates had "transplanted their families thither 
and there settled their residences at great charge, we commend it to the 
government within whose jurisdiction they shall appear to be * * * 
not only not to remove them from their plantations, but also to encourage 
them with protection and assistance in all fit ways." This revised order 
was sent to Massachusetts and Connecticut under date of July 22, 1647. 
The question of Colonial jurisdiction was thus left undecided and was 
not finally settled until the jurisdiction of the Colony of Rhode Island 
was established over the Narragansett country. Occupancy of Shawomet 
was granted to the Gortonoges on the condition that the settlers "demean 
themselves peacefully and not endanger any of the English Colonies by 
a prejudicial correspondency with the Indians or otherwise." When the 
three towns. Portsmouth, Newport and Providence, met at Portsmouth 
on the 19th of May to organize a government under the Williams Patent 
of 1643, before a permanent organization was made, "It was agreed that 
Warwick should have the same privileges as Providence" and Mr. Ran- 
dall Holden was chosen an Assistant for Warwick. Two years later, 
concurrent with the town of Providence, on ]\Iarch 14, 1648-9, Warwick 
received an official town charter under the new government of Providence 
Plantations on Narragansett Bay. Samuel Gorton returned from Eng- 
land in 164S. by way of Boston, and was taken into custody, on arrival, 
but the order of the Earl of Warwick of 1G46 served as his protection, 
and he proceeded to Shawomet to his former possessions and dwelling, 
where he gathered his family and friends about him after a long 
separation. 

The first official act of the town of Warwick took place through an 
order of the General Recorder of the Colony. It is thus recorded : 

"Having now received our orders this 8th of August, from ye Gen- 
erall Recorder, we have chosen for a Towne Council, being a General 
Assembly order. Jo. Greene, Ezc. Holliman, Jo. Warner, Rtifus Barton, 
Randall Holden ; Town Magistrates, Rufus Barton, Jo. Wickes ; Town 
Clarke, Jo. Warner; Constable, Hen. Townsend ; Sergeant, Chri. Helene." 
While Shawomet dates its legal occupation, as established by the English 
Court from the date of purchase, January, 1643, its legal town existence 
began with its recognition by the General Assembly and the subsequent 
organization by the choice of town officers, August 8, 1647. 



CHAPTER XXI 



THE PEQUOT WAR 



CHAPTER XXI. 
THE PEQUOT WAR. 

The Indian tribes of New England, the occupants and rightful owners 
of much of the territory, were in the main friendly to the whites who came 
as discoverers and settlers. Whatever may have been the feelings of the 
tribes-people, the sachems without exception extended the welcome hand 
and spoke the welcome word. It may also be said, honestly, that the 
great body of discoverers and settlers of our northern coast, especially 
the latter, desired and sought the friendship of the tribes, among whom 
they came, often winning their good will by presents of various sorts, 
attractive to the eye and mind of the simple natives. Columbus de- 
scribes the Indians of the south as "no wild savages, no cmel barbarians ; 
they had good faces; they neither carried nor understood weapons, not. 
even swords ; they were generous and courteous ; very gentle, without 
knowing what evil is, without killing, without stealing. Because," he 
said, "they showed much kindliness for us, and because I knew that they 
would be more easily made Christians through love than fear, I gave to 
some of them some colored caps, and some strings of glass beads for 
their necks, and many other trifles, with which they were delighted, and 
were so entirely ours that it was a marvel to see." Verrazzano, the first 
to describe our New England coast and its people, says the Narragansetts 
were "the finest looking people and the handsomest in their costumes that 
we found in our voyage ; their demeanor is gentle and attractive ; they 
are very generous, giving away whatever they have; we formed a great 
friendship with them ; we judged them to be very affectionate and char- 
itable towards their relatives." With these benevolent qualities we asso- 
ciate bravery, great physical endurance, a high sense of justice, and con- 
stancy in true friendship. All were fierce, revengeful and quick and 
certain in resenting injuries. Though living a free, untamed life, war- 
fare was not the natural instinct and nature of the Eastern Algonquin. 
The men were lazy, working only as necessity demanded. They were 
fond of hunting and fishing and the products of these labors supplied a 
large part of the food of the family. The women were the real workers 
in the home and the cultivators of the soil. At the same time it must be 
remembered that they were a simple-minded people, accustomed to modes 
of life, and habits of thought and acts absolutely unlike those of civilized 
peoples. Owing to differences in language each was liable to misinterpret 
the other. To the English mind, property in land was a permanent and 
personal possession. To the Indian, land values were temporary in 
nature and communal in exercise. With peoples of such wide racial diff- 



388 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

erences, living in close proximity, it would be strange indeed if serious 
misunderstandings did not arise, leading to personal or tribal conflicts 
with the white settlers. 

In full justice to the Indian, it may be said that he chose peace to 
war, and in full justice to the early settlers it may be said that their chief 
desire on the part of most was to treat the Indians justly and to show 
them the better ways of living. The exceptions proved the rule. 

With the missionary spirit of the PlvTnouth, the Massachusetts Bay, 
the Connecticut and Rhode Island colonists, led by Bradford, Winthrop, 
Hooker, Williams and Qarke, went the baser element of Weston of Merry 
Mount, Oldham of Boston, and the like, who by varied ways, in dishonest 
trade, the sale of fire arms and rum and illicit intercourse, destroyed the 
confidence of the neighboring tribes, aroused the spirit of hate and revenge 
in the Indians, culminating in savage warfare. It is to the honor of sav- 
ages, that war is to them the final step in their regard for the protection 
of their rights. 

The early relations of the white settlers of New England with the 
adjacent Indian tribes were in the main peaceable and friendly. The 
treaty made with Massassoit in 1621, was sacredly observed as governing 
the relations of the Wampanoag tribes with all the Colonies until the 
death of Massassoit. The natural and inevitable causes of misunderstand- 
ings growing out of racial differences and business conduct were few and 
inconsequential and their duration brief. The heroic treatment adminis- 
tered by Captain Myles Standish to the hostile element in the Massachu- 
setts tribe, south of Boston, was a complete and permanent remedy for 
any later troubles from that tribe. While all the colonists anticipated 
and were on the alert for hostile attacks and usually carried fire arms to 
their work, to the meeting house on days of worship and on their travels, 
it was seldom that occasion called for their protecting use. On the be- 
half of the Indian it may be said that he had good occasion to distrust the 
white man, in that he had better offensive and defensive weapons and 
tradition and history had taught him that these weapons had been malic- 
iously used for the slaughter of defenceless and often inoffensive In- 
dians, from the coasts of Labrador to the Everglades of Florida. 

While the offensive and defensive alliance between Plymouth Col- 
ony and the Wampanoags was a source of strength and protection to the 
infant settlements, it was at the same time the occasion of a wakening 
animosity in the minds and hearts of the Narragan setts, the most powerful 
of the New England tribes. 

The Wampanoag was a subject tribe to the Narragansetts, before the 
coming of the Pilgrims to Plymouth. The alliance of Massassoit with 
the Pilgrims in 1621 was a bold stroke of diplomacy and a defiant act of 
secession from the control of the stronger tribe. Had the Narragansetts 



THE PEQUOT WAR 3^9 

at that time resented the act of alliance, they could easily have destroyed 
with the aid of the eastern Indians the feeble colonists at Plymouth and 
the Bay, in an overwhelming slaughter and put a stop to the colonizing of 
eastern New England. The tradition of the exchange of bullets for ar- 
rows between Canonicus and P)radford was interpreted as an expression 
of the feeling of hostility which Indians felt towards the whites, and 
the bold, defiant attitude of the Plymouth leaders. Fortunately for the 
Colonists, the Narragansetts were imder the administration of two re- 
markably wise and cautious chiefs, Canonicus and Miantinomi, the latter 
the nephew of the former. Canonicus was a great sachem, one of the 
greatest that ever ruled an Indian people. He was a man of peace, who 
bridled his wrath and governed his people in the spirit and purposes of 
a wise governor. From his ancestor, Tashtassuck, he inherited a strong 
nation, including all the New England tribes. The Indian tradition runs 
that he was the greatest prince in the country, ruling an empire of sub- 
jects, and having two children, a son and a daughter, whom as he could 
not match in dignity, he caused them to be united as husband and wife. 
Canonicus was the oldest of four children from this notable stock, giving 
full proof of his lineage by his ambitions for his people and his nobility 
of character. It can be truthfully said of Canonicus that he never violated 
a pledge made to the white settlers. 

Miantinomi, the younger of the two Narragansett sachems, was a 
man of will, blood and mettle, and the executive in tribal administration, 
the extreme age of Canonicus preventing his active leadership in war or 
diplomacy. Had the leaders of the Plymouth Plantation understood the 
relations of Massassoit and his tribe as a subject people to the Narragan- 
setts, they would not have made the treaty of 1621 with the Wampanoags, 
a subject tribe, but with Canonicus, the chief of the New England tribes, 
the broils which occurred later between the two tribes, separated by the 
Bay, would have been avoided, in which the Plymouth people were obliged 
to take up arms on the side of Massassoit against Canonicus. A notable 
instance occurred in 1632, when the Narragansetts crossed the Bay and 
attacked the English house at Sowams, to capture Massassoit. Both 
Boston and Plymouth, led by Captain Myles Standish, came to the de- 
fence of their neighbor and ally, and drove back the invaders. It is easy 
to see that the Narragansetts on the one hand and the white settlers of 
Massachusetts Bay, on the other, would naturally suspect and distrust 
each other, not to use the harsher words of hate and hostility towards 
each other. 

Between these two antagonists. Roger Williams at Providence, a 
friend of the Narragansetts and also of Gov. Winthrop of the Bay, stood 
as a mediator between the two forces, reconciling their differences and 
stilling suspicions of both parties. In the capacity of a peacemaker be- 



390 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

Uveen the Indians and the English colonists, Mr. Williams wrought his 
most important and most memorable work. His services were called for 
soon after his exile, and were always at the command of the Plymouth 
and Bay Colonies. The first occasion relates to the inception of the 
Pequot War. 

The Pequot tribe occupied the territory on the west of the Narra- 
gansetts, bordering on Long Island Sound, in the south-east corner of the 
Connecticut Colony, including territory east of the Pawcatuck to \N'eeka- 
paug. Hubbard calls the Pequots a "more cruel and warlike people than 
the rest of the Indians, a terror to all their neighbours." While their seat 
of government was at New London on the Thames, they held sway over 
all the tribes of the Connecticut River Valley, on the west, and, though 
fewer in numbers, terrorized the Narragansetts, on the east. Sassacus 
was the first great chief of the tribe known to the English, as well as the 
last, and at one time his domain and authority extended from the Hudson 
River to Narragansett Bay. After the arrival of the white colonists, the 
tribe was a menace to the settlers on all sides and it at once became the 
firm purpose of the English to reduce its power and if possible to annihi- 
late it. The special provocations of the Pequot War were the murders of 
several whites, traders or settlers, among whom were Captain Stone and 
eight others, who, on a trading expedition to the mouth of the Connecti- 
cut River were slain by Pequot Indians and their goods and vessel appro- 
priated. Stone was a Massachusetts Bay man, of dissolute habits and his 
death with that of Captain Norton passed unnoticed in 1633. The most 
tragic event was the murder of John Oldham, a Dorchester trader, in 
1636, at Block Island. His vessel was taken by the Indians, the cargo 
seized and his two boys taken captive. Roger Williams made inquiry into 
the affair and reported to Governor Vane of Massachusetts the particulars 
of the tragedy. Canonicus and Miantinomi took an active part in ferret- 
ing out the murders and it was reported to the Bay authorities that the 
crime was committed because Oldham traded with the Pequots. The 
Pequots denied participation or knowledge of the murder of Captain Old- 
ham, sent presents to the English at Boston, and promised to slay the 
murderers of the Stone party. Further troubles and bloodshed by the 
Pequots led to the discovery that the Connecticut tribe was trying to 
persuade the Narragansetts to join them in a war of extermination of the 
the Massachusetts settlements. Fearing further assaults from the Pequots 
and the danger of a conspiracy with the Narragansetts and Niantics, the 
Bay Colony declared war on the Pequots and a troop of over 200 men 
from Boston and the towns adjoining was raised and placed under the 
command of Colonel John Endicott and Lieutenant-Colonel John Win- 
throp, Jr., to make war upon tlie tribe. 



THE PEOUOT WAR 391 

The Bay expedition, under command of Colonel Endicott, embarked 
in three small vessels for Block Island for the purpose of prosecuting the 
war against the Pequots, "having been undertaken upon just grounds." A 
levy of £600 was ordered to meet the expense. The troops were ordered 
to "put to death the men of Block Island, but to spare the women and 
children ; and from thence to go to the Pequots to demand the murderers of 
Captain Stone and other English, and one thousand fathoms of wampum 
for damages and some of their children for hostages, which if they should 
refuse, they were to obtain it by force." Captains John Underbill, Na- 
thaniel Turner and Israel Stoughton held commands in the little army of 
about one hundred men. Plymouth and Connecticut Colonies were urged 
to send men to strengthen the force. The fleet arrived off Block Island 
about night-fall, the troops under Captain Underbill made the shore in 
small boats and an attack was made at dusk upon sixty savages, who had 
let fly a shower of arrows from behind sand dunes. The Indians, who 
were Niantics or renegade Narragansetts, fled into the forests for pro- 
tection from the English bullets. During the two days spent on the 
Island, they scoured the woods to find two deserted villages of about 
sixty wigwams, some of which were large. They burned the wigwams, 
destroyed all the canoes and 200 acres of corn. Captain Underbill 
reported fourteen savages killed and a number wounded, with no losses 
of the English troops. 

After an easy victory at Block Island the fleet sailed up the sound and 
landed at Saybrook, at the mouth of the Connecticut, to make an attack 
on the Pequots. Colonel Gardener, commander of the fort at Saybrook. 
did not approve of Colonel Endicott's plan, telling him "You have come 
to raise a nest of wasps about our ears, and then to flee away." General 
Endicott was firm in his determination to carry out the orders of his 
superior officers at Boston, and, being fitted out with boats and men and 
five vessels, they sailed to the Pequot River (the Thames) where they 
held a conference with the savages of the Pequot tribe. Sassacus, the 
chief sachem, was absent on Long Island and, receiving no satisfaction 
from the sub-chiefs, Endicott attacked the Indian villages, killed some 
savages, and burned their wigwams ; the next day the Boston party 
destroyed the Indian village on the east bank of the river, broke up their 
canoes and returned to Boston, after killing fourteen Pequots and wound- 
ing forty, Endicott not losing a single man. While there may have been 
good reason for the punishment meted out to the Indians on Block Island, 
in retaliation for the Oldham murder, there seems to be none for the 
attacks made on the Pequots and the destruction of their two villages at 
the mouth of the Thames. Colonel Endicott was condemned by Com- 
mander Gardener of Saybrook and the Governor of Plymouth Colony 
remonstrated with the Bay government for needlessly provoking a war 



392 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

with the Pequots. Endicott's plea in defence that he followed instruc- 
tions, given without a full knowledge of conditions and without a just 
cause for the attack, fails to satisfy military or judicial opinion of later 
days. 

As might he expected, the acts of the Endicott troops angered the 
whole body of the Pequot tribe and they plotted their revenge on all Eng- 
lish colonists wherever found. The defenceless inhabitants of Connecti- 
cut were subjects of their revenge during the winter of 1636-37. Sassacus 
now bent his energies to the formation of a union of all the strong New 
England tribes for the destruction of the English settlers in New Eng- 
land. His plan embraced the alliance of the Mohawks, the Nipmucks and 
the Narragansetts with his own tribe, forming a body of warriors of at 
least eight thousand men, all of whom were known to be experienced in 
all the arts of Indian warfare, and merciless to their foes, of whatever 
blood. The white man fought by day with his flintlock and bayonet. The 
Indian fought by night with torches, tomahawk and scalping knife. The 
Indian mind now began to comprehend the purposes of the white man. 
Permanent settlement of the one meant the destruction or slavery of the 
other. Either result, anticipated and dwelt upon, aroused the more hostile 
and militant tribes to the necessity of vigorous resistance, the knowledge 
of which, on the part of the whites, led to vigorous measures of defence, 
and, if need be, of ofTensive warfare. It is not in our hearts to blame 
Sassacus and his braves for an alliance for tribal and general protection. 
Self-preservation is nature's first law for civilized or savage. Nor, on the 
other hand, can we condemn the New England fathers in the formation 
of the confederacy for the protection of the lives and acquired rights of 
the young colonies. The situation was a difficult one for both the Indian 
and the white man, and, with such wide differences in mental attitude and 
the misunderstandings of race and language, we must expect, as we find, 
sad mistakes in the acts of both parties. 

Midway between the Indian tribes on Long Island Sound and the 
great body of white English colonists on Massachusetts Bay was the feeble 
settlement at Providence, made by Roger Williams and a few companions 
in 1636. One man, and one man alone stood between the two hostile 
forces, and this man had just been banished from the Bay Colony and had 
come out to make a home in the wilderness of the Narragansett country. 
That man was Roger Williams, and to him is due the honor of an achieve- 
ment which saved the New England colonies from absolute destruction 
in this momentous crisis. Mr. Williams had made the friendship of 
Canonicus and Miantinomi, the chief rulers of the powerful Narragan- 
setts. On the decision of that tribe, through these great sachems, rested 
the whole question of an Indian war of extermination. Mr. Williams 
was at once appealed to by the Governor of the Bay Colony to intercede 



THE PEQUOT WAR 393 

with Canonicus to prevent his alliance with Sassacus. The two great 
qualities which marked Mr. Williams as a great man now appear— his 
forgiving spirit and his love of peace. All ill-will, if he had cherished any 
bitterness, was set aside, and unmindful of his own comfort and safety, 
Mr. Williams, comprehending the situation, hastily, scarcely advising his 
wife of his purpose, proceeded by water in a frail canoe through "stormy 
wind with great seas" to the wigwam of Canonicus at Narragansett. But 
Sassacus was there before him. endeavoring to persuade the chief to jom 
in the overthrow of the whites — saving none. How near the chiefs and 
tribe were to a decision in favor of an Indian alliance we shall never 
know. We do know that Mr. Williams spent three days and nights, 
in peril of losing his life, in the effort to prevent the union, urgently de- 
sired by Sassacus and the Pequot tribe. Here was the supreme test of 
Indian friendship towards Mr. Williams. Mr. Williams was a white man, 
pleading for the safety of white men. Sassacus, on the other hand, an 
Indian, was pleading for unity and loyalty in the Indian tribes as against 
the whites. It would seem almost a hopeless task for this lone man of 
another race to win in such an issue, but Roger Williams did win the 
allegiance of the mighty Narragansett tribe to the side of the English colo- 
nists and the great result of this mission was that Miantinomi and the two 
sons of Canonicus were induced by Mr. Williams to go to Boston, where 
a treaty of alliance and of peace was made between the Massachusetts 
colony and the Narragansetts, leaving the Pequots to fight their battle 
alone. 

The issue of the Pequot War was determined by the influence and 
acts of Roger Williams. Finding that they must fight unaided, Sassacus 
gave free scope to his tribe to murder and destroy at will as at Saybrook 
and Wethersfield. Colonial troops from Connecticut and Massachusetts, 
reenforced by volunteers from the Narragansetts, Mohegans and Niantics 
to the number of about 540 in all, under the command of Captain Mason, 
of Connecticut, and Captain Underbill, of Massachusetts, met near the 
Pawcatuck River and planned an immediate attack on the Pequot fort 
on a hill in the northwest part of the present town of Stonington. Within 
the circular area were some seventy wigwams, sheltering from 500 to 700 
Indians. Breaking camp in the eariy hours of May 26, 1637, after a sea- 
son of prayer, the attacking party under Mason and Underbill reached 
the fort an hour before dawn. A dog's bark awakened the Indian sentr>-, 
and the cry, "Owanux, Owanux" (Englishmen, Englishmen), aroused 
the sleeping red men. Mason, with si-x'teen men entered one sally port and 
I'nderhill did the same on the opposite side, and English broadswords and 
firearms began the work of destruction. To hasten the slaughter. Captain 
Mason threw a firebrand on the straw roof of a wigwam and Captain 
Underbill started fires in other sections by trains of gunpowder. In an 



394 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

hour the work of death was done and more than 500 men, women and 
children had been slain by fire or sword. Those who had attempted to 
escape were killed by the whites and friendly Indians without the fort, 
so that few, if any, escaped. Of the English only two men were killed, 
though a considerable number were wounded by Indian arrows. Mason 
narrowly escaped death, for an Indian had taken deliberate aim at him, 
when Mason's orderly cut the bowstring and he went through the ordeal 
unhurt. 

The remnant of the Pequot nation discussed the several questions of 
attacking the Xarragansetts, the white settlers or of taking refuge among 
the Mohawks on the Hudson. The latter course was chosen, and those not 
slain by hostile tribes found shelter beyond the borders of the New Eng- 
land, from whence they never returned to molest the colonists. Sassacus 
lost his life among the Mohawks. The order went forth that the name 
Pequot should never be spoken in New England. Notwithstanding, the 
ancient Indian trail from New York to Providence still bears the early 
name, "The Pequot Trail." 

While Captains Mason and Underbill won renown for the complete 
overthrow of the Pequot tribe, the great achievement of the war was 
wrought by Roger Williams and for almost forty years the colonists of 
Southern New England lived in peaceful relations with the native tribes. 
"The infant was safe in its cradle, the laborer in the field, the traveller in 
the forests ; the houses needed no bolts, the settlements no palisades." 




CHAPTER XXll 



THE WILLIAMS PATENT 



CHAPTER XXII. 

THE WILLIAMS PATENT. 

Under The Providence Proprietary has been shown the disposition 
Mr. Williams made of the lands given him by the Narragansett chiefs, 
March 24, 1638. The landed institution, established that year, continued 
for two hundred years and expired by reason of the disposal of all the 
property interests and the decease of all persons interested in preserving 
an incorporated historic memory of its records. 

Mr. Williams was made aware of the importance of the consent of 
King Charles to the occupancy of the Plantations by the strong arguments 
of Samuel Gorton, if not by his own personal knowledge of the Royal 
control over the lands of North Virginia. Gorton insisted that Mr. Wil- 
liams' Indian deeds had no value without the endorsement of the EngHsh 
government, and that a government as a squatter on Indian lands was a 
libel on the name of civilism and civilization. The discredit thrown upon 
the Plantations by so able an antagonist as Gorton stirred Mr. Williams 
to the depths of anger towards his neighbor and aroused the spirit of 
inquiry as to proper action. 

Leaving Mr. Williams to his reflections on procuring a patent for 
the Plantations, our attention is called to the fact that at two sessions of 
the General Court on Aquidneck, the matter of a Charter had been con- 
sidered. On November 25, 1639, Quarter Court day, at Newport, an 
order was passed for Mr. Easton and Mr. John Clarke to write to Mr. 
Harry Vane, "and desire him to treate about the obtaining a Patent of 
the Island from his Majestic." No further evidence exists as to the action 
of this committee. 

At the General Court of the Colony of Rhode Island on Aquidneck, 
held at Newport, September 19, 1642, it was ordered "that a Committee 
shall be appointed to consult about the procuration of a patent for this 
Island and Islands and the lands adjacent." Petitions were to be sent 
and letters written to Sir Harry Vane or to "any others whom they shall 
think meet for the speedy effecting of said business." Here we have a 
clear plan for a Patent twice acted upon and committees chosen in each 
instance to secure the services of Sir Harry Vane to obtain a Royal patent 
for the Islands of the Rhode Island Colony on Aquidneck. No reference 
was made to extend the patent over the two towns at the head of the Bay, 
and there is no evidence that the committees had consulted with Mr. 
Williams as to a charter or patent to include both settlements on the Bay— 
the Plantations and Aquidneck. In fact there is no probability that this 
last committee, consisting of Governor Coddington, Deputy Governor 



3y8 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

Brenton, Assistants Easton, Coggeshall, Porter and Balston, William 
Dyer, Captain Jeoffreys, Captain Harding and Dr. John Clarke, would 
advise with Mr. Williams on business foreign to their interests. Some 
writers have tried to show that Mr. Williams was a friend of Mrs. 
Hutchinson, of Aquidneck, and a cordial supporter of her views, and 
hence influential in the Island colony. The fact is, that Mr. Williams 
had no connection with the antinomian movement in Massachusetts at all, 
and no sympathy with its followers. The Coddington-Hutchinson colony 
on Aquidneck was as far removed in principles and action from the 
Williams-Harris combine at Providence as were Williams and Gorton 
personally. There was little of common interest and nothing of coopera- 
tive relation. Hence it was that Coddington and Williams had little to 
do with each other. Their friendship, if it existed at all, was cold and 
indifferent. The reasons are almost too obvious to be stated, yet they 
should be, in view of the fact that some writers have reasoned by the law 
of probabilities, so often used in the treatment of Mr. Williams' acts, that 
a combination was formed between the committee of the Rhode Island 
Colony on Aquidneck and Mr. Williams, by which the latter was made 
the agent of the former, to secure a charter or patent, covering all the 
towns on Narragansett Bay. 

The first broad line of separation between Aquidneck and Provi- 
dence is to be seen in their attitude to religious thought and worship — ^the 
paramount consideration of Pilgrim and Puritan days. The Aquidneck 
settlers have not left us in doubt as to what they thought of the Qiristian 
faith and the Christian church. The church, the meeting house, the 
minister, the sacraments, the Bible, the various church organizations were 
the first concern of the people who founded Portsmouth and Newport. 
At Providence, Mr. Williams gave little heed to the religious life of the 
community. His mind was already bent toward Seekerism, even before 
his coming to Providence. That is manifest in his final letter to the 
church at Salem. After his brief connection and withdrawal from the 
Baptist church fonned by Mr. HoUiman at Providence, Mr. Williams 
made positive declarations against the existence of churches and their 
accessories. Mr. Richman includes the element of Seekerism as one of 
the motives that led Mr. Williams to England in 1643 — ^ sect so inde- 
pendent "as to be no church at all, but the antecedent elements or atoms of 
one, seeking a principle of cohesion." 

Rev. Robert Baillie, an eminent Scotch Presbyterian, a member of 
the Westminster Assembly, came to know Mr. Williams personally while 
he was in London, 1643-44. He wrote: "The Independents are divided 
among themselves. One Mr. Williams has drawn a great number after 
him to a singular independency, denying any true church in the world, and 
will have every man serve God by himself alone." It can readily be seen 



THE WILLIAMS PATENT 399 

that this attitude of mind sets at nought social and cooperative work of 
a religious sort, extinguishes the church and negatives the doctrine of 
soul liberty as a practical formula, making a personal and private affair 
of beliefs and unbeliefs, into the secrets of which no man may enter, and 
against which no man can enter an accusation. Later, Mr. Baillie writes: 
"Sundry of the Independents are stepped out of the church and follow 
my good acquaintance, Mr. Roger Williams, who says there is no church, 
no sacraments, no pastors, no church officers or ordinances in the world, 
nor has been since a few years after the apostles." 

Mr. Richman calls Mr. Williams the founder of the Seekers and 
accords to him the theological attitude given that sect by "Old Ephraim 
Paget:" "Many have wrangled so long about the church that at last they 
have quite lost it, and go under the name of Expecters and Seekers. * * 
Some of them affirm the church to be in the wilderness, and are seeking 
for it there; others say it is in the smoke of the temple, and that they are 
seeking for it there, — where I leave them praying to God." Such inde- 
pendency in religious concerns, which were the chief subjects of thought 
and debate in those days, places Mr. Williams in the position of men who 
deny government and social order and are looking for "a new heaven and 
a new earth" in which dwell the gods of their own creating. It is abso- 
lutely sure that Mr. Williams had no Seeker followers on Aquidneck. 

On another point of highest importance in a civil community, Mr. 
Williams was not in accord with Aquidneck — lazv and order. "The face 
of Providence is set against Magistracy" was the message sent to Gov- 
ernor Winthrop by Mr. Williams. Disorder was the prevailing condition 
throughout the Plantations, even after a form of civil government was set 
up on receipt of a town charter in 1649. So great was the disturbance 
and so deep-seated the personal animosities that Mr. Williams threatened 
to withdraw for the sake of quiet and rest "to the little Island of Pa- 
tience." In fact, in 1644 he did remove from Providence and set up an 
Indian trading house at Cawcumscussuc, where he lived until his second 
voyage to England in 1653, when he sold his property to Richard Smith. 

A final and absolutely conclusive reason as to a non-relationship be- 
tween Mr. Williams and the Coddington group lies in the fact, admitted 
by all who understood the situation, that Aquidneck had no intention of 
forming any union with Providence or Warwick. Newport hated War- 
wick and hoped for the success of Massachusetts in obtaining and holding 
the territory now occupied by Gorton and company. Providence was to 
Newport what Mr. Richman called "A Non-Entity." It was only a collec- 
tion of nondescript people, where lawlessness held sway and liberty and 
religion by-words. Mr. Coddington's strong desire was to form an alli- 
ance with Plymouth Colony. This measure seemed to him and many 
others of the Island Colony not only desirable but practicable. They rea- 



400 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

soned that the possession of a patent for the islands would place the 
people of that section at an advantage in the discussion and settlement of 
a plan for forming a colony with Newport as the capital for the new 
order. It was evident to the Islanders that any union with the towns at 
the north would forever prevent such a coalition. To preclude such a 
possibility the strong Aquidneck committee, with Governor Coddington 
at the head, was chosen in 164^ to obtain, by the aid of Sir Harry Vane, 
a patent of the Island Colony. Had Mr. Williams' scheme been under- 
stood or considered a possibility, even the whole delegation would have 
visited England to prevent it. Of the purposes of the Aquidneck people 
and their feeling towards the Providence settlement, no one knew better 
than himself. And now, in 1643, occurred an inexplicable event in the 
history of our colony — the voyage of Roger Williams to England for a 
charter — a trip that extended from June, 1643. to September, 1644. 

In May, 1643, prior to his departure, the colonies of Plymouth, 
Massachusetts Bay, Hartford and New Haven had united in the New 
England confederacy for mutual advantage and protection against the 
common danger, the Indians, as well as for "the preserving and propa- 
gating the truth and liberties of the gospel." It was provided that no 
other independent colony should be received into the four united colonial 
fellowship — a provision evidently aimed at a possible colony or colonies 
on Narragansett Bay. It did not preclude the enlargement of either one 
of the four colonies in the compact by annexation, and seems to have been 
aimed at the Plantations rather than Aquidneck — Plymouth at this time 
holding friendly relations with the Island towns and hoping for their 
annexation to their government. 

Mr. Williams, as was usual, was his own counsellor as to the matter 
of the patent. He knew what Aquidneck had done and he knew William 
Coddington. He did not disclose his plans to those neighbors who needed 
a charter for a thousand people more than he did for a hundred. What 
they wanted he did not want, and it was the safer plan to keep his own 
counsels. Judge Staples says, with reference to his journey for a patent : 
"There is nothing in the records of Providence relative to his appoint- 
ment." It is difficult to understand how Mr. Williams could have been 
sent by Providence, for there was no civil government at Providence and 
the Proprietary had no civil, financial or fiduciary ability to act for the 
proletariat. Had he brought the matter before the land corporation, 
public discussion would have ensued. Harris, the Carpenters, the Olneys 
and others might have entered their usual objections to Mr. Williams' 
scheme. The knowledge of the ambitions of Mr. Williams would have 
gone abroad to Aquidneck and Boston, and defeat would have marked 
the plan in its embryo. "A stiU hunt" was the Williams policy and 
method, while if an excuse for a trans-Atlantic voyage was demanded, it 



THE WILLIAMS PATENT 401 

was forthcoming in Mr. Williams' purpose to print "The Key to the 
Indian Language." Such a reason would probably have satisfied "My 
loving friend, Gov. Winthrop," though there are no letters, in a volumi- 
nous correspondence, relative to the trip to England or its purpose. The 
plan was Mr. Williams' own, it was well laid, and under the cover of 
other measures it was securely kept and successfully carried out. 

By the terms of his exile, Mr. Williams could not leave by the port 
of Boston, so his voyage was made from New York by a Dutch ship, 
which landed him in London in the autumn of 1643. The Civil War had 
just begun, the first battles had been fought in the great contest between 
King Charles and the Earl of Essex — leaders of the Cavaliers and the 
Puritans. A battle no less fierce, wanting only the element of blood, is 
waging in Parliament. Pym, the eloquent Puritan leader ; Sir Harry 
Vane, the brilliant independent, and Cromwell, the uncrowned knight in 
debate, are the leaders of the party fighting for Toleration versus Prelacy. 
The outcome of that contest was the famous "League and Covenant," 
enacted while Mr. Williams was "a looker on at Venice." 

Vane is a busy man in London, but has time to consult with Mr. 
Williams as to colonial afi'airs in New England and to hear his version of 
social and civil conditions. On his long voyage Williams completed his 
"Key to the Indian Language" and is waiting for printer's proofs while 
discussing Toleration with Milton, or listening to the debates of the West- 
minster Assembly, then in session in London. The Earl of StrafTord, 
Sir Thomas Wentworth, has been found guilty of treason, and by the 
consent of his King Charles has been beheaded in the tower, while Laud, 
Archbishop of Canterbury, and Chancellor of the University of Oxford, 
a foremost supporter of the King and the most influential man in all Eng- 
land, was in prison waiting his trial, which began i6'44, and ended in con- 
viction and death on the block in 1645. These were troublous days in 
England, pregnant with the most momentous events of English history. 

Mr. Williams has not given us the story of his experiences in London 
during this epoch-making period. During the later month of 1643, while 
Mr. Williams was in London, three of the greatest members of the Long 
Parliament went to death — two on the battlefield, Hampden and Falk- 
land, and Pym, the eloquent and bold leader of the Parliamentary party, 
dying on the 8th of December, 1643, after a lingering illness. Carried on 
the shoulders of ten of the leading members of the House of Commons, 
Pym was buried in Westminster Abbey, with the lamentations of the 
patriots of New English liberties. Concerning these great events Mr. 
Williams is silent. We only know some things he did, which are also evi- 
dence of his mental states. His "Key" was printed and his book, "The 
Bloudy Tencnt," was written and printed during his stay in and about 

R 1-26 



402 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

London. To understand the occasion of this vohmie. we need to refer to 
events transpiring in London and England during Mr. Williams' sojourn 
and a Httle before "Toleration" was the theme of debate in Parliament 
and in the Westminster Assembly. Of the one party were those who 
declared against all liberty in belief and worship except as decreed by the 
formulas and ordinances of the church. On the other extreme, were the 
men who urged that the "inventions of men or any carnall liberty, under 
a deceitful colloure of liberty of conscience, may be duly and seasonably 
supprest, though they wish as much forbearance and respect may be had 
of tender consciences as may stand with the purity of religion and peace 
of the churches." It can readily be seen that between these two divergent 
views, multitudes of beliefs might find shelter. For centuries the struggle 
had been on between men of progressive thought and iron creeds, and 
men were broken into submission to authority by all forms of persecution. 
The six-teenth century revealed a more tolerant spirit towards heretics, 
and but for the record of Mary, that period showed immense gains. The 
Baptists had declared for liberty, the Brownists had defined the relations 
of the civil to ecclesiastical power. The Pilgrims had exiled themselves 
for the sake of conscience liberty, finding in Holland a safe retreat from 
English church tyranny, and in America the full freedom for mind and 
soul. When Mr. Williams landed at London, the Puritan was on the 
rack, and had been since Charles the First and Laud had harried more 
than 20,000 of them out of the kingdom to find shelter in New England. 
In the midst of the fierce encounter between Puritanism and the Churcli 
which had resolved itself into a civil war, with the King at the head of the 
Cavalier army, and Cromwell leading the Ironsides, Mr. Williams appears 
on the scene of action. His friend. Sir Harry Vane is among the chiefs 
for large Toleration. "The League and Covenant" are the product of his 
brilliant leadership and the unanimous adoption of this great measure by 
both Houses of Parliament are the measure of his influence and popu- 
larity. 

Mr. W^illiams enters the arena in the famous allegory of "The Bloudy 
Tenents" between Truth and Peace. All Englishmen are in hot heat in 
the fever and fervor of the great debate. From the Parliament Houses 
to the tuppenny bars of London the voices of loud harangues are heard 
on religious freedom and Toleration vs. Intolerance. All is music to our 
Colonial exile and he is moved by all he sees of civil war and hears of the 
clash of tongues to write his academic treatise on "Toleration." Mr. 
Williams' distinctive literary quality was loud sounding titles to his vari- 
ous treatises. "The Bloudy Tenent" and "George Fox Digged Out of His 
Burrowes," etc., are examples. One can find all the ideas credited to Mr. 
Williams by reading "Religious Peace; or a Plea for Liberty for Con- 



THE WILLIAMS PATENT 403 

science," by Leonard Busher, London, 1614; "A Dialogue ■wherein is 
proved by the La'w of God: By the Law of the Land, etc., that no Maim 
ought to be persecuted for his religion," by John Murton, 1620; and Phil- 
lingworth's "Religion of the Protestants," 1638. The last-named work 
went through five editions in a brief time and is to-day a classic on re- 
ligious liberty. Mr. Williams' "Bloudy Tenents" was published anony- 
mously and in 1646 was ordered to be burned by the House of Commons, 
of which Sir Harry Vane was a member. It is quite easy to understand 
Mr. Williams' attitude in this book by noting two or three mental quali- 
ties, universally admitted. He had by nature a polemic spirit for debate, 
using language that was ve.xing and irritating in the e.xtrenie to his oppo- 
nents. The judicial Thomas Durfee, the distinguished jurist of Rhode 
Island and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the State, writes: 
"Historians urge that he (Williams) was eccentric, pugnacious, per- 
sistant, troublesome; undoubtedly he was." Mr. W. B. Weeden speaks 
of "the vagaries of his (Williams) individual will." John Quincy Adams 
characterized him as "conscientiously contentious." Governor Bradford, 
of BIymouth, prays "that he may have a settled judgment and constancie 
in the same." These several opinions mean one and the same thing, the 
inability to turn into practical channels his own mental operations. This 
defect in mental adjustment is clearly illustrated in the charter which Mr. 
Williams obtained, under date of March 14, 1644, and will be noted in 
that connection. 

In November, 1643, Parliament made Robert Rich, liarl of Warwick, 
Governor-in-Chief and Lord High Admiral "of all those Islands and 
other Plantations inhabited or planted by, or belonging to any His Majesty 
the King of England's Subjects within the bounds, and upon the coasts 
of America." Six lords and seven commoners were chosen as commis- 
sioners "to join in aid and assistance." Sir Harry Vane is a member of 
this body and most likely its most influential factor. As he had spent two 
years in Boston, had a clear knowledge of Colonial matters and was a 
friend of the Aquidneck Colony as well as of Mr. Williams, it is proba- 
ble, it is certain, that his advice and vote in the commission would pre- 
vail. It is safe also to say that Mr. Williams was a welcome guest at 
Belleau, Vane's country seat in Lincolnshire, where the outline of the 
patent was discussed, and Mr. Williams' plans consented to. A patent 
involves several important elements. Among them are definite bounds of 
territory to preclude rival claimants ; civil units or townships included ; 
general rights and protection guaranteed; special rights growing out of 
special conditions, social, civil or religious ; service and tribute demanded 
in return for patent ordinances and privileges. So much emphasis has 
been laid upon the Williams patent of 1644, as the first royal grant, estab- 



404 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

lishing the first government of the world on the sound base of civil free- 
dom and religious liberty, it is well worth our most careful study. We 
copy the substantial parts of the instrument that there may be no mis- 
understanding as to its contents and purport. The first paragraph gives 
the names of the Governor General, Robert Rich, the Earl of Warwick, 
and the seventeen commissioners, among whom are Sir Harry Vane, 
William Fiennes, Viscount Say and Seal, John Pym, Samuel Vassal and 
Oliver Cromwell, the majority of whom, if not all, were of the liberal 
Parliamentary Party. After a statement of the duties and powers of this 
Colonial Board, the bounds of the territory are stated : "A tract of land 
in the Continent of America aforesaid, called by the name of the Narra- 
gansett Bay ; bordering northward and northeast on the patent of the 
Massachusetts, east and southeast on Plymouth Patent, south on the 
Ocean, and on the west and northwest by the Indians called Xahiggan- 
nencks, alias Narragansets ; the whole tract extending about twenty-five 
English miles unto the Pequot River and country." 

It will be noted that the charter confers powers to form a civil 
government in accordance with the will of the majority, provided that 
the "Laws, Constitutions and Punishments * * * be conformable to 
the laws of England, so far as the nature and constitution of the place will 
admit." These terms of civil government are precisely the same as were 
conferred on all the American Colonies. They differ not a jot or tittle from 
the charters of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth Hartford, New Haven, or 
Virginia. There is a reservation of "Power and Authority for to dispose 
the general government that as it stands in relation to the rest of the 
Plantations in America," not contained in the other patents. A public 
seal of "Providence Plantation, in the Narragansett Bay in New England" 
is authorized, the charter to cover the towns of Providence, Portsmouth 
and Newport. No claims are made as to levies of service or taxation, 
no special protection guaranteed from Indians or other enemies and not 
the slightest reference to religious freedom or even toleration. Mr. Ar- 
nold assumes that the words "Civil Incorporation" inclusively covers 
religious freedom, and Mr. Strauss follows him in the same interpreta- 
tion. This seems to partake of the nature of special and specious plead- 
ing. It is this kind of assumption on the part of the earlier biographers 
of Mr. Williams that has caused later historians to challenge and con- 
tradict the earlier verdict. All the charters of the English Colonies, under 
one name or another, establish civil government for and by the people, 
subject to a revision by the Crown. No more and no less was granted by 
the Williams Patent. By the Charter of 1663, written by John Clarke, 
the clause declaring and establishing religious liberty stands as the open- 
ing sentence of that immortal instrument. The preamble reads ; 



THE WILLIAMS PATENT 405 

And whereas, in their humble address, they have freely de- 
clared, THAT IT IS MUCH ON THEIR HEARTS TO HOLD FORTH A LIVELY EX- 
PERIMENT, THAT A MOST FLOURISHING CIVIL STATE MAY STAND AND BEST 
BE MAINTAINED, AND THAT AMONG OUR ENGLISH SUBJECTS WITH A FULL 
LIBERTY IN RELIGIOUS CONCERNMENTS. 

Whatever Mr. Williams may have thought or believed as to soul lib- 
erty, he did not secure its adoption or expression in the patent. Whatever 
Sir Harry Vane or Cromwell or the Earl of Warwick or any or all of 
the Commission for the Colonies believed and freely expressed in other 
state papers, the Williams Patent of 1644 gives no hint of their views 
as to religious liberty in "Providence Plantations in Narragansett Bay." 
They could write "Toleration" and "The League and Covenant" into the 
English Constitution. Their tongues are dumb and their pens silent as 
to the great voncerns, "The lively experiment," which would have made 
the Williams Patent the first overseas protective guaranty of both civil 
and religious liberty for men. History stood with uplifted pen, — until 
in 1663, Dr. John Clarke inscribed "Full Liberty in Religious Con- 
cernments," on the Great Charter of the Rhode Island Colony. 

Much confusion has arisen as to the meaning of the western bound 
of the tract as described in the patent, — "On the zifest and nortlnvest by 
the Indians," etc. The Narragansett and Niantic Indians occupied all 
the lands from the Bay to Pawcatuck River, between Warwick and the 
Ocean. Did Mr. Williams except these lands from the Patent? If so, 
the Patent only included through purchases, — Providence, Aquidneck 
and Warwick, — about half the present State of Rhode Island. Did he 
mean to extend the west bound to the Thames or Pequot River ? Did he 
intend to destroy the Indian titles and governments by the Royal Patent? 
What is meant by "the tract extending about twenty-five English miles?" 
The indefiniteness of the west boundary line practically nullifies the 
Patent, so far as it related to its extent. 

About a year after the return of Mr. Williams with the Patent he 
received a letter from Massachusetts relative to the same territory, as 
follows : 

Sr, wee receaved lately out of England a charter from ye authority 
of ye high Courte of Parliament, beareing date loth December, 1643, 
whereby ye Narragansett Bay & a certaine tract of land wherein Provi- 
dence & ye Island of Quidny (Aquidneck) are included, wch wee thought 
fitt to give yow, & other our countrymen in those pts, notice of, yet yow 
may forbeare to exercise any jurisdiccion therein, otherwise to appeare at 
our next Generall Courte, to be holden the first 4th day of ye 8th month, 
to shew by what right yow claime any such jurisdiccion ; for wch purpose 
yorself & other yor neighbors shall have free liberty to come, stay & re- 
tourne, as the occaccion of ye said busines shall require. 

Dated at Boston, in ye Mattacusetts, 27, 6 mo., 1645. 

To Mr. Roger Wms, of Providence, by order of ye Counsell. 

Increase Nowell, Sect. 



4o6 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

In explanation of this extraordinary circumstance that Massachusetts 
Bay had secured a patent of the same territory as the Providence Patent, 
under date of the loth of December, 1643, three months prior to that of 
Mr. WilHams, it should be stated, that in 1641, Hugh Peters, Thomas 
Welde and Mr. Hibbens were sent to England as special agents of the 
Colony to look after its interests. In 1645, this Committee was called 
home and on its return this Patent was brought back as one result of 
their mission. The boundaries are stated in precisely the same words as 
the Williams Patent. The reasons for the patent as stated in the instru- 
ment are the excessive cost of founding the Massachusetts Colony, and 
its rapid growth, requiring an expansion of its territory. The Narra- 
gansett Patent provided a reservation of all lands previously granted "and 
in present possession held and enjoyed by any of his Majesty's Protest- 
ant subjects," while the Providence Patent made no such proviso. "As 
no English grant had been made of any of this territory, unless to Ply- 
mouth, the reservation is of no account. As related to the Williams Pat- 
ent, Mr. Arnold discusses the matter of the two patents at length with- 
out arriving at any satisfactory conclusion, while Mr. Richardson in one 
of his essays suggests its invalidity on the ground that it was signed by 
only a moiety of the Commissioners." Here he is in error. Mr. Pym, one 
of the eighteen, died December 8, 1643. The Narragansett Patent was 
signed by nine of the Commissioners, a majority of one of the whole 
board. He also cites the fact that Vane and Cromwell did not sign the 
Narragansett Patent, but Cromwell did not sign the Williams Patent. 
The fact that it was dated on a Sunday does not invalidate the document. 
Whatever our historians may attempt to show as probable as effecting 
the validity of one or the other document, it is absolutely sure that on the 
loth of December, 1643, the Royal Commissioners issued a legal patent 
to Massachusetts Bay Colony, of the Narragansett Bay Country, and that 
the same body issued a patent of over identically the same territory to 
Roger \^'illiams, under date of March, 1643-4. Why such a contradictory 
act was done, no historical evidence can be found. The main fact is 
unquestioned that on all vital points as to rights, powers and privileges, 
the two documents are identical in language and interpretation. 

If soul liberty is assumed as an essential factor in the Williams Pat- 
ent, it was equally so in the Narragansett Patent, and all historians of 
any repute know that Massachusetts Bay Colony was striving to reduce 
believers in that doctrine by flogging and imprisoning Baptists and 
scourging and hanging Quakers. The banishment of the x\quidneck Col- 
onists was excellent evidence of "Toleration" as understood and prac- 
tised at Boston, led as they were by Governors Winthrop and Endicott, — 
Mr. Williams' "loving friends." 



THE WILLIAMS PATENT 407 

The real mystery surrounding these two patents of the same tract 
in and around Narragansett Bay relates to two facts, one that the Massa- 
chusetts Bay Colony, after giving notice to Mr. Williams of the extent 
and priority of the Narragansett Patent did not take any action in de- 
fence of the right, which the people of the Colony of Providence Plan- 
tations waited nearly three years — till May, 1647, before they organized 
under the Williams Patent. The records of both Colonies are dumb, 
and theories are not history. 

Historically, the most remarkable feature of the Williams Patent is 
the Colonial title — "Providence Plantations in the Narragansett 
Bay in New England." Mr. Williams certainly magnified his office as 
a patent maker. Here we have a clear case of the tail wagging the dog. 
Providence was not an organized community. It had possibly an hundred 
people, scattered in the wilderness, between the Pawtucket and Pawtuxet 
Rivers, with a Massachusetts Bay contingent on the south side of the 
Pawtuxet. This community of separated men and women — separated in 
more senses than remoteness, had not a civil officer of any name or sign, 
neither civil law nor magistrate, remaining in 1644 in the inorganic con- 
dition of 1636, save as a self-incorporate land company, styled in law 
a proprietary. This was all of Providence Plantations, — land, wild beasts 
and forests and a handful of discontented people. No law, no officer, no 
government. Warwick, recently bought by Gorton and his friends, also 
without civil government, was not included in "The Plantations" of Mr. 
Williams. 

At the south end of Narragansett Bay on Aquidneck Island a 
thousand people were settled in two towns, Portsmouth and Newport. 
The towns had orderly civil governments, courts of justice, magistrates; 
a Colony had been formed, "Democraticale," with religious liberty at 
the base. This Colony has had a Governor and Deputy, a General As- 
sembly, Colonial Secretary and Treasurer and courts of justice for four 
years. It has a Colonial seal, with the motto of peace, "Amor vincet 
omnia." Here was a full fledged Colony, an inchoate commonwealth, al- 
ready stretching out its arms in prayer for Royal recognition, as an in- 
dependent Colony. At four annual elections since the first in 1640, Wil- 
liam Coddington, a wise ruler and a just judge, had been elected Chief 
Magistrate of the Colony of Rhode Island on the Island of Rhode Island. 

Mr. Richman writes of the two communities : "Now that the Island 
of Aquidneck had become a political entity, the contrast between it and 
the entity (or non-entity) Providence was marked in the extreme. By 
Providence there was symbolized individualism— both religious and po- 
litical—a force centrifugal, disjunctive, and even disruptive. By Aquid- 
neck (and especially by the Newport part of it) there was symbolized col- 
lectivism—a collectivism thoroughly individualized as to religion, but in 



4o8 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

politics conjunctive and centripetal." * * * "During the age of 
Roger Williams that which we are bidden to contemplate on the shores of 
Narragansett Bay is a struggle between separatism and collectivism." 
Newport and Portsmouth had, besides the principles named, a popula- 
tion of well educated and well-to-do people, who had had experience in 
civil government in England and at Boston. At Providence all were poor, 
and Mr. Williams the only person of a fairly liberal education. 

The people of Aquidneck had agitated the question of a separate 
Colony since 1639, but for unknown reasons, a patent had not been se- 
cured. It may be assumed however that the opposition of King Charles 
to free institutions, supported as he was by .Archbishop Laud, in bitter 
opposition to Puritanism in Church and State, was the chief reason for 
the failure. We have already seen that Aquidneck was opposed to a 
political union with Providence and Warwick, with strong leanings 
towards a union with Plymouth, which laid claim to the islands adjoin- 
ing her territory on the east shore of the Bay. It would have been the 
sheerest act of justice, diplomacy and courtesy in Mr. Williams had he 
consulted Gov. Coddington and Dr. John Clarke as to the terms of a 
patent that might unite the settlements at the north and south ends of the 
Bay. Both were wise men, both diplomats. It is possible that a per- 
manent union might have been effected, advantageous to both. But it 
may as well be stated, first as last, that Mr. Williams seldom sought ad- 
vice, and when advised seldom acted with it. Masson calls Mr. Williams 
"the arch individualist,"— the final word of history concerning this sing- 
ular man. 

There can be but one verdict in respect to the act of Mr. Williams. 
It was unjustifiable on any and all grounds. Mr. Williams acted the 
part of a self-chosen representative of the Plantations. He went to Eng- 
land, acted, returned, wholly on his own account. Had he limited his 
mission to the Plantations and obtained a patent for it, there could have 
been no criticism, on the other hand praise would have been due. He 
did not so act. By the inclusion of the Rhode Island Colony in his patent, 
he was false to that Colony, to the Commissioners and to himself, and to 
truth. Mr. Williams well knew that he was invoking the spirits of evil, 
whose lashes were the strings of scorpions. The temptation was great, 
the opportunity fair, the temporary success beyond all expectation, the 
end — Colonial discord, paralysis. Not the least of the sad results of this 
faux pas was the destruction of the confidence of the Aquidneck settlers 
in their Boston friend and supporter. Sir Harry Vane. By the repre- 
sentations of Mr. Williams, he is made to turn his back to them, — a real 
political entity, and to favor what Mr. Richman calls a "non-entity,"— 
Providence Plantations. Twenty years later, in 1663, Dr. John Clarke, 
the great and wise legislator and diplomat, the author of the Great Charter, 



THE WILLIAMS PATENT 409 

the Magna Charta of American liberties, with a breadth of vision unex- 
celled by the statesmen of his time, and with a magnanimity equal to his 
love of liberty, rewrote the title of the settlements on Narragansett Bay, 
in imperishable form, "The Colony of Rhode Island and Providence 
Plantations in the Narragansett Bay in New England, in Amer- 
ica." The Colony of Rhode Island on Aquidneck then possessed no 
rightful place as the leader in the grand march of civil and religious 
liberty. 

Mr. Williams returned to New England in the autumn of 1644, by 
way of Boston, by reason of a letter of safe passage through the town, 
from the Earl of Warwick, Governor General of the Colonies. His com- 
ing had been heralded at Providence and in the company of trusty friends, 
who met him at Boston, he followed the old Indian trail till he reached 
the banks of the Seehonk, which he crossed eight years before almost 
alone, an exile from Massachusetts. A flotilla of fourteen canoes, loaded 
with people, now welcomed and escorted him on his triumphant way to 
his home in Providence. He bore on his person the sacred parchment 
which made the Plantations a Colony of the Crown. It was a day of great 
rejoicing at Providence, but one writer, Richard Scott tells us: "The 
man being hemmed in in the middle of the canoes was so elevated and 
transported out of himself that I was condemned in myself that amongst 
the rest I had been an instrument to set him up in his pride and folly. 
And he that before could reprove my wife for asking her two sons why 
they did not pull off their hats to him, and told her she might as well bid 
them pull off their shoes as their hats. * * * And he that could not 
put off his cap at prayer in his worship, can now put it off to every man 
or boy that pulls off his hat to him." 

But the patent, the cause of such joy at Providence was the cause 
of the deepest sorrow and humiliation at Newport. While the sun of 
hope shone on the Plantations, a dark eclipse brooded over Aquidneck. 
The Colony of Rhode Island was, by the stroke of Mr. Williams' pen, 
•Stricken from the map of New England and Providence Plantations in 
Narragansett Bay took its place. But that was the smallest source of 
grief, for the paltry settlement at the head of the Bay took the place of 
the Capital town and Portsmouth and Newport occupy a subsidiary place 
in the new Colony. 

Governor Coddington has never worshipped at the shrine of Mr. 
Williams, nor will he ever. Dr. John Clarke is a diplomat. While he does 
not conceal his mortification at the humiliation, he does conceal his "curses 
not loud but deep" and waits the supreme hour of sweet revenge. For 
three years the Island peoples delay action as to acceptance of the Patent. 
The records are meagre,— the oracle is dumb. Coddington will never 
yield to the usurper or recognize loyally the Williams Patent. The Rhode 



4IO HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

Island Colony still pursues its regular course of elections and judicial pro- 
ceedings, with Mr. Coddington as Governor. The Governor, before 
Williams' return had learned of this strange assumption of authority in 
his act to annihilate the Island Colony and wrote to Governor Winthrop, 
Aug. 5, 1644, "to have either such alliance with yourselves or Plymouth, 
one or both as might be safe for us all." The letter was referred to the 
Commissioners of the United Colonies, meeting at Hartford, Sept. 5, 
1644, and action was taken on the 9th as follows : "Some of the inhab- 
itants of Rhode Island haveing intimated a willingnes to be received into 
and under the Government of one of the Colonies. The Commissioners 
considering that by an utter refusall, they may by the discords and diver- 
sions among themselves, be exposed to some great inconvenyence, & 
hopeing many of them may be reduced to a better frame of government, 
thought fitt that if the major part & such as have most interrest in the 
Island will absolutely and without reservacion submitt, either the Massa- 
chusetts or Plymouth may receive them." 

Plymouth Colony is also disturbed over the Williams Patent, and 
charges an encroachment on their patent. Governor Winslow pleads with 
the Earl of Warwick "that wee might enjoy our ancient limits of govern- 
ment granted in our letters patent and shewed that their charter (Wil- 
liams, for the limits of it now granted) was contained within our line of 
government." 

In furtherance of the contention that the Williams Patent was in 
direct opposition to the prior patent of Plymouth, a vigorous protest was 
sent to England and Mr. John Brown of Plymouth, Rehoboth and \\an- 
namoisett, was sent to Aquidneck as messenger, with a copy of the fol- 
lowing instructions, dated at New Plimouth, Nov. 8, 1644: 

/. That a great part of their supposed government (Williams Pat- 
ent) is within the line of the government of Nczc Plimouth. 

2. That zve assuredly knew that this exrn to be honoured House of 
Parliament zcould not, nor will ivhen they shall knoiv of it, take from us, 
the most ancient plantation, any part of the line of our government, for- 
merly granted, it being contrary to their principles. 

J. To forbid them and all and every of them to exercise any author- 
ity or poiver of government within the limits of our letters patents. 

4. To certifie them that Cou'eset is not only within the said limits, 
but that the sachim thereof and his sonnes have taken protection of this 
our govermncnt. And therefore to forbid them (the Williams Patent) 
to enter upon any part of his or their lands without due order and leave 
from our government. 

Mr. Brown's visit to Aquidneck to deliver his message occurred on a 
day when the people were met "to take into consideration a new disposall 
of the lands formerly given out, as if some had too much and some too 



THE WILLIAMS PATENT 41 1 

little, & for now respect of persons, & their estates were to be laid aside." 
Gov. Coddington and Mr. Brenton did not favor the actions of the new 
governments, and did not attend the meeting. It seems that Samuel Gor- 
ton had come into some magisterial relation to the land matter and was 
present at the public meeting, where Mr. Brown made known the declara- 
tions of Plymouth. Gorton, speaking for the Williams Patent party, op- 
posed Mr. Brown, and declared that "he deserved to die for that which he 
had done and were hee in any other place it would cost him his life." It 
is evident, — from Gov. Winslow's story of the affair, that the meeting at 
Portsmouth was divided on the land and colony questions, for the meet- 
ing broke up for the day, Mr. Brown took his leave and Plymouth put 
its trust for the safety of its rights in the English Colonial Commissioners. 
We are at a great loss of evidence as to what transpired at Aquidneck or 
Providence between 1644 and 1647. We do know that Gorton accepted 
the Williams Patent at once, though it did not include Warwick. We 
also know that Gov. Coddington opposed it, and it is to be assumed that he 
was supported by the majority of the Islanders. It is also fair to believe 
that Dr. John Clarke was led to support the Williams Patent. What the 
people thought and how they acted are problems beyond solution. Cal- 
ender remarks : "It is not to be wondered at, if it took them some time to 
agree in a method" of civil government. 




CHAPTER XXlll 



ROGER WILLIAMS, THE SAVIOUR OF NEW ENGLAND 



CHAPTER XXIII. 
ROGER WILLIAMS, THE SAVIOUR OF NEW ENGLAND. 

The earlier New England historians, from Backus to Arnold, elevated 
Roger Williams to the seat of honor as the first man among men to de- 
clare and to establish a civil government, in which the right of the indi- 
vidual man to personal, civil and spiritual freedom were enjoyed. Later 
and the latest of the new school of American historians, examining new 
and original records and interpreting old records in the greater light of 
historic truth, are reaching a different conclusion as to the value of the 
work and influence of Mr. Williams. While admitting him to the ranks 
of world benefactors and leaders, they are forced to conclude that the 
claims of earlier writers were extravagant and extra judicial, and that 
some new, truthful and more conclusive tablet must be written to per- 
petuate his name. Mr. Williams never claimed for himself what his 
enthusiastic admirers would attach to his deeds. For instance, Bancroft, 
the rhetorical historian of early New England writes: "He (Roger Wil- 
liams) zvas the first person in modern Christendom to establish civil goz'- 
ernnu-nt on the doctrine of liberty of conscience, the equality of opinions 
before the /aw." Another historian of the analytic and remorseless mod- 
ern type, a distinguished teacher and author, declares with equal em- 
phasis: "Mr. Williams did not declare for soul liberty before his banii ..- 
ment and he never did afterwards as a working hypothesis." 

Our own position is that the work attributed to Mr. Williams at 
Providence was done by Dr. John Clarke and William Coddington at 
Portsmouth and Newport, in the founding of the Colony of Rhode Island 
on Aquidneck, as discussed in another chapter. The field between the 
two extremes of opinion is wide and will be debatable ground for long 
years, deferring the final verdict, but in the end making the result more 
satisfactory and final. The perspective of a thousand years will show the 
real stature of the men who founded and built our great American 
Republic. 

Meanwhile there is a pedestal of large proportions, now unoccupied, 
on which Mr. Williams can stand in colossal form, in the character of 
Peacemaker and Saviour of the New England Colonies. For this 
high place there is no formidable claimant and no envious competitor. 
The exalted honor belongs to Roger Williams of Providence and to him 
alone. 

Roger Williams was a man of singular intellectual and moral qual- 
ities, a full and clear interpretation of which belongs to the disciples of 



4i6 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

Henry James. Some of these mental and moral traits seem to have been 
antagonistic, at war with each other. All admit that Mr. Williams was a 
master in polemics. Controversy was his natural attitude, from which 
no period of his life w-as free. Much of this disputatious spirit and ex- 
ercise was absorbed in academic debate. In fact, Mr. Williams' quill-pen 
was his most efifective weapon of offensive and defensive warfare. His 
courage and tongue often failed him in a personal encounter. He was 
gifted with a large and brilliant vocabulary of English and his armory of 
expletive epithets and luminous adjectives was full to overflowing. He 
was a gallant carpet-knight and dealt death-bearing blows to absent foe- 
men. The only occasion which reveals Mr. Williams' strength as an oral 
debater was his three days encounter at Newport, in August, 1672, with 
the masters of the Quaker "Principles," Burnyeat, Stubbs and Edmend- 
son. Mr. Williams described Edmundson as "A flash of wit, a face of 
brass, and a tongue set on fire from the Hell of Lyes and Fury." Ed- 
mundson said of Williams : "One Roger Williams an old Priest and an 
enemy of Truth. * * * The bitter old man could make nothing 
out, but on the contrary all the slanders and accusations against the 
Quakers were turned back upon himself; he was baffled and the People 
saw his Wrathness, Folly and Env>' against the Truth and the Friends." 
Mr. Jones calls the debate "a tilting of wind-mills on both sides," and 
cites it as "a melancholy monument to the bitterness of these Seventeenth 
Century theological wars." A great increase to those of the Quaker 
faith at Newport and Providence is the best evidence that the Quakers 
won in the wordy warfare. 

In his fighting moods, Mr. Williams seems to have been seized with 
the "passion for scribbling," a disease called in the Latin tongue "Cacoe- 
thes Scribcndi." His titles are not fully equal to Cotton Mather's, but 
what is wanting in quantity is made up in quality. His punitive and 
death-dealing epithets were hurled like red-hot shot at real or imaginary 
foes. But all this quality of controversy seemed healthy, normal, rele- 
vant in an age that tolerated and read John Cotton, and Nathaniel Ward, 
alias "The Simple Cobbler of Agawam." Of such effervescent militancy, 
it may be said that the danger place was the point of the polemic pen — 
that "the bark was worse than the bite." 

Friendships were lost and friends were never won, 
By wordy-shotted pens instead of guns. 

Polemics aside, Roger Williams was a peace-maker. The qualities 
of mind and heart that qualified him to fill this honorable place in New 
England history far over-balance the controversial temper and go far 
towards over-shadowing it. Mr. Williams was a man of a very kind 
heart and of a generous nature. Few men of historic size were ever so 



ROGER WILLIAMS, SAVIOUR OF NEW ENGLAND 417 

ready for self-sacrifice — self, in the form of property, position, service- 
all were at the use of the needy and destitute. Human sympathy was 
large, reaching out into the mission field among the Indians and toward 
all needy and suffering souls. He interpreted every form of human 
weakness, sin and depravity in terms of conscience liberty — an idealism 
peculiar to himself and the men he sought to save. Providence was made 
an asylum for sin-sick and soul-sick men and women. Mr. Williams in- 
vited all such to come and find a common shelter under the protecting 
shadows of this wave-washed wilderness. 

There was another great and masterful faculty of Mr. Williams that 
stood him in good stead in his earlier life. It was the spirit of ready and 
genuine forgiveness of real or fancied wrongs and wrong-doers. His 
fighting nature made many enemies and brought him into difficult straits. 
His physical sufi^erings were not to be compared with the mental in the 
trials through which he passed from first to last, most of which were the 
product of an arrogant self-will or a mortifiable self-conceit. It is a 
singular fact in the story of Mr Williams' life that he seems to review 
adverse events as just and the actors in them as friends against whom 
he cherishes no ill-will nor revenge. His banishment from Massachusetts 
is an instance of this sort. Whenever speaking of it he seems to justify 
his judges and one of them. Gov. John Winthrop, he treasures for years 
as his honored and loving friend and advisor, with whom he carries on a 
constant and a confiding correspondence until Gov. Winthrop's death. 
Self-esteem and self-assertion, or self-confidence with a fair measure of 
personal courage to the point of actual physical injury, constitute added 
qualities which came into full play in Mr. Williams' experiences as a 
Colonial Peacemaker. It can readily be seen that Mr. Williams was not 
a man of the world — of worldly build. He was not a business man and 
his statesmanship was peculiar, original, impractical. His mind held 
fast the theologic attitude, common to his time, especially among men who 
had some scholarly training. His uncertainty as to creeds, forms and 
sacraments unfitted him for the pulpit at a time when orthodoxy allowed 
no apologists and liberalism had few disciples. These conditions of mind, 
heart and training made it difficult for Mr. Williams to align himself 
with the secular or religious movements of his time. The title which he 
adopted, "Seeker," expresses most perfectly his attitude as to life and 
its problems and that word would be an affix to his name — Roger Wil- 
liams, Seeker. 

Mr. Williams' generous nature found expression in his plan to be- 
come a missionary to the Indians. "My soul's desire was to do the 
natives good, and to that end have their language and therefore desired 
not to be troubled with English company." Gov. Winthrop advised Mr. 

R 1-17 



4i8 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

Williams to betake himself to the Indian country, for while a minister at 
Plymouth, he had made the acquaintance of Massassoit and Canonicus, 
studying the language and modes of life of the Indians of the two tribes 
on Narragansett Bay. Mr. Williams had won the friendship of the chiefs 
by his interest in their tribal aflfairs as well as by gifts of varied sorts, 
which easily won their favor. Having gained their confidence, Mr. Wil- 
liams undertook the difficult task of learning the Indian language which 
involved to some extent the teaching the chiefs the rudiments of English. 
Scant credit has been given Mr. Williams for this original study of 
language, life and characters. That he was a clever student appears in 
an observation made of the Indians. "For the temper of the braine in 
quick apprehension and accurate judgments, to say no more, the most high 
and Sovereign God and Creator hath not made them inferior to Euro- 
peans." 

Concerning the general pacifist nature of Mr. Williams, his letters 
are the best evidence, especially those that he wrote in a frendly and con- 
fidential spirit to the two Governors Winthrop, father and son, one of 
Massachusetts, the other of Connecticut, covering the period of his active 
years at Providence. 

The first test of Mr. Williams' loyalty to the Colonies and of his 
earnest efforts to save the infant settlements from destruction by the 
united Mohawk and Pequot tribes, occurred in 1637. We have already 
seen that Mr. Williams had made friends of the Narragansetts both for 
himself and for the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In his first letter to 
Gov. Winthrop, he says: "Concerning natives, the Pequots and Niantics 
resolve to live and die together, and not to yield up one." A few days 
later he writes, that the Pequots and Alohawks have entered into a league 
against the white settlers and that they have slain many of the Connecticut 
planters. He calls the Mohawks "mad dogs, cannibals," and hopes "the 
Most High will put his hook into their nose ;" * * * "they are most 
savage, their weapons more dangerous, and their cruelty dreadful, roast- 
ing alive, &c. * * * Sir, I may not forget due thanks for your in- 
tended requittals of my poor endeavors towards the barbarous; if it please 
the Lord to use so dull a tool, satis superque, &c." L^nder date of May 
1837, Mr. Williams wrote to Boston, stating that Miantonomi was friendly 
but that "Canonicus (Morosus aeqnc ac barbarcx senex) was very sour 
and accused the English and myself for sending the plague amongst them, 
and threatening to kill him especially. Such tidings were brought to his 
ears b}- some of his flatterers and our ill-willers. I discerned cause of 
bestirring myself, and staid the longer, and at last (through the mercy of 
the Most High) I not only sweetened his spirits, but persuaded him that 
the plague and other sicknesses were alone in the hand of the one God," 
and that such troubles fell upon English and Indians alike. At the same 



ROGER WILLIAMS, SAVIOUR OF NEW ENGLAND 419 

time, Mr. Williams offers a plan of campaign against the Pequots, which 
he had obtained from the Narragansetts, with a drawing of the fort and 
defenses of the Nyantics, Pequots and Mohawks. He suggests that Ca- 
nonicus "would gladly accept of a box of eight or ten pounds of sugar — 
a box full." In a letter of May 23, 1637, Mr. Williams tells Massachusetts 
that the Narragansetts are "doubtful of reality in all our promises," urges 
speed against the Pequots, and requests beads, coats and sugar be sent 
to the Sachems, as tokens of friendship. On June 2, he writes of a visit 
to the Narragansetts and learns of the victory won by the English at the 
Pequot Fort, the destruction of a great portion of the warriors of 
the tribe and the flight of the remnant to the Mohawks, west of the Con- 
necticut River. It was prior to this battle that Mr. Williams made the 
difficult and dangerous journey to the Narragansetts, staying among the 
savages for three days, at the risk of his life, to prevent the union of the 
Narragansetts with the Pequots, Mohawks, Nipmucks and other tribes 
in a confederate hostile attack upon the English. This event may be 
properly termed the crisis in the history of the New England Colonies, 
and when we compare the fighting power of the Indians of New England, 
excepting the Wampanoags in treaty relations with Plymouth, with the 
scattered English settlers, we can readily understand that the probabilities 
were on the side of the Indians, in the annihilation of the white colonists, 
concentrated at Boston and Plymouth. Whatever may have been the 
issue, slaughter and extermination or both, the Rhode Island historian 
must accord to Mr. Williams the honor of having prevented the Narra- 
gansetts from entering the savage combine and of reducing the threat- 
ened danger to its lowest terms. 

Mr. Williams closes his letter, "beseeching the God of Peace to be 
at peace with us." Under date of June 21, he writes to Boston: "I un- 
derstand it would be very grateful to our neighbors (the Narragansetts) 
that such Pequots as fall to them be not enslaved, like those taken in war ; 
but (as they say is their usual custom) be used kindly, have houses, and 
goods, and fields given them, because they voluntarily choose to come into 
them, and if not received, will go to the enemy or turn wild Irish them- 
selves." Here we see the spirit of the Teacher, who said, "If thine enemy 
hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink." Another letter to Gov. 
Winthrop requests him to bring up an Indian childt "I have fixed mine 
eye on this little one with the red cord about his neck." Again he writes: 
"Tis true there is no fear of God before their eyes, and all the cords that 
even bound the Barbarians to Foreigners were made of self and covet- 
ousness, yet if I mistake not I observe in Miantonomi some sparks of true 
friendship, could it be deeply imprinted into him that the English never 
intended to despoil him of the country, I probably conjecture his friend- 
ship would appear in attending of us with 500 men (in case he is wanted) 



420 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

against a foreign enemy." * * * "i shall desire to attend with my 
poor help to discover any perfidious dealing, and shall desire the revenge 
of it for a common good and peace." 

The autumn of 1638 was occupied with business and peace negotia- 
tions between the tribes and the Colonies of Massachusetts Bay and Con- 
necticut and Mr. Williams was employed as interpreter and counsellor on 
behalf of the Indians. "Conduct like this," says Prof. William Gamwell, 
"in vindication of the rights of the natives, and in promoting the peace 
and happiness of all the inhabitants of the country, did not fail to secure 
the abiding confidence of the Indian Sachems. In every question that 
arose between them and the English, Williams was made their adviser 
and often became the mediator between the parties." 

Under date of May 9, 1639, Mr. Williams writes to "his much hon- 
ored and beloved Mr. John Winthrop, Governor of Massachusetts:" 

I am requested by Canonicus and Miantonomi to present you with 
their love and respect, * * * as also with this expression of the con- 
tinuance of their love unto you, 71'"., thirty fathoms of beads (ten from 
Canonicus and twenty from Miantonomi) and the basket, a present from 
Miantonomi's wife to your dear companion, Mrs. Winthrop; three things 
they request me to desire of you. 

First, the continuance of your ancient and constant friendship 
toward them, and good opinion of their sincere affection for the English. 
* * * That they have always (and shall still) succor the English in 
any distresses, etc. 

Secondly, that you would please to ratify that promise made to them 
after the wars, vis. : The free use of the Pequot country for their hunt- 
ing, etc. 

The third request was that they be allowed "to pursue those Pequot 
Princes & Captains" still annoying them, adding a postscript, "Canonicus 
begs of you a little sugar." 

Pequot troubles still continue to annoy the Narragansetts and Mr. 
Williams, whose sympathies are strongly with the Narragansetts as 
against their ancient enemies. He counsels kindness and "doubts whether 
any other use of war and arms be lawful to the professors of the Lord 
Jesus, but in execution of justice upon malefactors at home or preserving 
life or lives in defensive warfare." Here we find good Quaker doctrine 
at the base of Mr. Williams' pacific labors. "If the sword rages in Old 
or New England, I know who gives out the commissions, and can arm 
frogs, flies, lice, etc. He be pleased to give us peace which earth neither 
gives nor takes." Mr. Williams' peace and non-resistance principles ap- 
pear most conclusively in his letter to Gov. Winthrop about 1641, con- 
cerning the dreadful things Samuel Gorton was doing at Providence, 
closing with, "Yet the tide is too strong against us, and I fear (if the 



ROGER WILLIAMS, SAVIOUR OF NEW ENGLAND 421 

framer of Hearts help not) it will force me to little Patience,' a little isle 
next to your Prudence." 

In 1643 Mr. Williams made his voyage to England, returning with 
the first Charter in 1644. Ehiring this absence he published the work 
which will be the most durable monument to his name, "A Key to the 
Language of the Narragansetts." This work is evidence, conclusive, of 
Mr. Williams' intimacy with the Rhode Island tribes and the mutual con- 
fidence established, enabling him to make the cause of the Indians, espec- 
ially the Narragansetts, his own. He was the protector of the Colonies on 
the one hand and the friendly Indians on the other, and thereby a blessing 
and a saving force to both. 

During the absence of Roger Williams, one of the most distressing 
events of early New England history occurred — the tragic death of Mian- 
tonomi, the Junior Sachem of the Narragansetts. Nearly three centuries 
have passed since the event and the judgments of competent students are 
as variant on the justice or injustice of the death sentence as were the 
parties involved in the struggle. The judicial mind is called upon to ex- 
ercise an extra judicial attitude in respect to unknown conditions and 
unverifiable evidence, on which a just verdict should be rendered. There 
was but one man in all the world capable of a just judgment or equal to 
the task of averting the train of circumstances that led to the assassina- 
tion of Miantonomi, the great Sachem of the Narragansetts. That man 
was Roger Williams, for whose friendy advice and assistance the Sachem 
pleaded in vain, for an ocean separated them. The facts are simple, the 
causes, motives, judgments are complex. 

A war broke out between Uncas, sachem of of the Mohegans and 
Sequasson. a sachem on the Connecticut River, an ally of the Narra- 
gansetts. Miantonomi joined his ally against bis ancient enemy. Both 
parties appealed to the English who declared their neutrality in the fight. 
The Narragansetts, who were bound' to Massachusetts by a treaty, asked 
through their warchief, "To know if the Governor would be ofl:'ended if 
war was made on the Mohegans." Governor Wintbrop replied: "If the 
Uncas had done h,im or has friends wrong and would not give satisfaction, 
we should leave him to take his own course." The war began with an 
attack by Uncas, when Miantonomi with one thousand warriors took the 
field and met with defeat in a bloody fight. The Narragansett chief was 
captured through the treachery of two of his captains and was delivered 
to Uncas as a captive. Gorton united with the Narragansetts to obtain his 
ransom, when Uncas took his royal prisoner to Hartford and on Mianto- 
nomi's entreaty he was left in the hands of the English until the meeting 
of the Commissioners of the United Colonies at Boston. The court of 
the four allied colonies met at Boston, John Wintbrop presiding, Septem- 
ber 16, 1643. At this session the case of Uncas against Miantonomi was 



422 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

the chief business. No witnesses were examined, no evidence presented, 
no counsel heard as to the guilt or innocence of the party on trial for his 
life. Certain general allegations were made as to Miantonomi's hostility to 
the English.— "his treacherous plotts by gifts to engage all the Indians at 
once to cutt off the whole body of the English in these parts." His 
plots against the life of Uncas, his treacherous attack upon Uncas with a 
thousand men, bis refusal of a duel with Uncas "to end' the quarrel and 
spare blood," his alliance with the blood-thirsty Mohawks to attack the 
English, as soon as he was at liberty, — these and other charges occupied 
the minds of the eight commissioners of the New England Colonies for 
a day. Their decision, which seemed to have been unanimous, was as 
follows : "These things being duely weighed and considered, the commis- 
sioners apparently see the Uncas cannot be safe while Myantenomo lives, 
but that either by secret treachery or open force his life will be still in 
danger. Wherefore, they thinke he may justly put such a false and blood- 
thirsty enemie to death, but in his owne jurisdiction, not in the English 
plantacions. And advising that in the manner of his death all mercy and 
moderacion be shewed, contrary to the practise of the Indians who exercise 
torture and cruelty." Other records state that the court "called in five of 
the most judiciou.s elders and propounding the case to them they all agreed 
that he ought to be put to death." Thus, by extra-judicial and ecclesias"- 
tical authority, Miantonomi was condemned to die at the hands of his cap- 
tor. Mr. Arnold says, "The sentence was executed in its spirit and letter 
by the savage Uncas. Thus fell the most powerful of the native princes 
and the most faithful and honorable ally with whom the English had 
ever dealt. Unskilled in theological subtleties, he received all alike with a 
noble charity which might be called Christian. * * * fo him and to 
his uncle, the sage Canonicus, who survived, him four years, Rhode Island 
owes more than to all others. Christian or heathen, for the preservation of 
the lives of her founders." 

All this is true and more can be said in truthful fidelity. The two 
great sachems for the Narragansetts were the saviours of the New Eng- 
land Colonies in the extreme peril of the Pequot War. But for Roger 
Williams, the aUiance would have been completed between the Mohawks, 
the Pequots and the alhed tribes of the Narragansetts. The Mohegans 
and the Wampanoags were too feeble to have resisted the great tribes of 
the Confederates, and' the English had less than 2,000 fighting men, sepa- 
rated by wide wilderness distances, familiar to savage life and warfare. 
The pleadings of the philanthropist won the hearts of the sage Canonicus 
and fighting chieftain Miantonomi, and the lands and' homes of the Puri- 
tan and the Pilgrim were saved from a war of threatened extermination. 

In a letter from Mr. Williams to the General Court of the Massa- 
chusetts Bay Colony, in 1651, he says : "Please you to remember that ever 



ROGER WILLIAMS, SAVIOUR OF NEW ENGLAND 423 

since the time of my exile, I have been (throug'hi Cadi's help) a professed 
and known servant to this colony and all the colonies of the English in 
peace and war. So that scarce a week hath passed but some way or other 
I have been used as instrumental to the peace and spreading of the Eng- 
lish plantings in this country. 

"In the Pequot troubles, receiving letters from this (Massachusetts) 
government, I have hazarded my life into extreme dangers, by laboring to 
prevent the league between the Pequots and the Narragansetts. which 
work as an agent from this colony and. all the English in the land, I 
(through the help of God) effected the first thereof (as our much hon- 
ored Mr. Winthrop, deceased, wrote to me) hath- been peace to the Eng- 
lish ever since." In another letter, Mr. Williams wrote, "It hath pleased 
the Most High to carry me on eagles' wings, through mighty labors, mighty 
hazards, mighty sufferings * * * in many of my trials and suffer- 
ings, both amongst the English and barbarians." In another letter to the 
General Court of the Bay, Mr. Williams wrote, "It pleased your honored 
government to employ me in the hazardous and weighty service of nego- 
tiating a league between your.selves and the Narragansetts, where the 
Pecjuot messengers, who sought the Narragansetts' league against the Eng- 
lish, had almost ended my work and life together. * * * In all your 
great transactions of war or peace, between the English and the natives, 
I have not spared purse, nor pains, nor hazards (very many times) that 
the whole land, English and natives, might sleep in peace securely." 

In 1654, rumors were abroad that the Bay Colony was meditating a 
war against the Narragansetts. Hearing the report, Mr. Williams writes a 
long and particular letter to the General Court in the interests of peace 
and in defence of what he calls the home tribes. Several quotations from 
this remarkable letter will show Mr. WiUiams' views as to war and the 
proper treatment of the native tribes. He says, "I never was against the 
righteous use of the civil sword of men or nations; * * * I pray 
your consideration, whether it be not only possible, but very easy to live 
and die in peace with alJ the natives of this country. * * * Hath not 
the God of Peace and the Father of Mercies made these natives more 
friendly in this, than our native country in our own land to us? * * * 
Have they not entered leagues of love, and to this day continued peaceable 
commerce with us ? * * * I have been and am a friend to the natives 
turning to civility and Christianity. * * * The Narragansetts and 
Mohawks are the two great bodies of Indians in this country, and they 
are confederates and long have been, and they both- are yet friendly and 
peaceable to the English. * * * The Narragansetts, as they were the 
first, so they have been long confederates with you ; they have been true in 
all the Pequot Wars to you. They occasioned the Mohegans to come in, 
too, and so occasioned the Pequots' downfall. * * * I cannot yet 



424 HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 

learn, that ever it pleased the Lord, to permit the Naxragansetts to stain 
their hands with any English blood, neither in open hostilities nor secret 
murders, as both Pequots and Long Islanders did and Mohegans also, 
in the Pequot Wars. * * * Por the people, many hundred EngJish, 
haxe experimented (proved) them to be inclined to peace and love with 
tli« English nation. * * * Tlaeir late famous long-lived Canonicus 
so lived anfi died and in the same most honorable manner and solemnity 
(in their way) as you laid to sleep your prudent peacemaker, Mr. Win- 
throp. did they honor this, their pnident and peaceable prince. * * * 
We have been esteemed by some of you as your thorny hedge on this 
side of you ; if so, yet as a hedge to be maintained ; if as out-sentinels, yet 
not to be discouraged." * * * 

The following quotations are taken from Mr. Williams' letters, sub- 
sequent to 1660. "Public peace and love is better than abundance of 
corn and cattle.'" "My humble desires are to contribute my poor mite 
(as I have ever and hope I ever shall) to preserve plantation and public 
interest of the whole of New England and not interest of this or that 
town, colony, opinion, etc." "The natives of this Bay as (by promise 
to them at my first breaking of the ice in amongst them) expect my en- 
deavors of preserving the public peace, which it hath pleased God, mer- 
cifully to help me to do many times (with my great hazard and charge) 
when all the Colonies and the Massachusetts, in especial, have meditated, 
prepared and been (sometimes many hundred) among the march for war 
against the natives in this Colony." "Barbarians are barbarians, * * * 
they are a melancholy people (and judge themselves by the former Sa- 
chem and these English (Warwick) oppressed and wronged; you may 
knock out their brains and yet not make them peaceably to surrender, 
even as some oxen will die before they will rise ; yet with patience and 
gentle means will rise and draw and do good service. Lastly, sir, we 
profess Christianity, which commends a little with peace ; a dinner of 
green herbs with quietness, and if it be possible, commands peace with all 
men." 

One other quotation from Mr. Williams' letters will conclude his 
own testimony as to his services in the protection of the English Colonies. 
It is from a long letter to Major Mason, under date of Providence, June 
22, 1670, found in \'ol. \T, Narragansett Clubs Col. To those desiring 
a clear insight into Mr. Williams' character and attitude toward the Col- 
onies in his later years, this letter is commended as a valuable study, illus- 
trating as it does the changed views which his life's rough experiences 
have wrought in him. 

When the next year after my banishment, the Lord drew the bow 
of the Pequot War against the country, in which, Sir, the Lord made 



ROGER WILLIAMS, SAVIOUR OF NEW ENGLAND 425 

yourself, with others, a blessed instrument of peace to all New England, 
I had my share of service to the whole land in that Pequot business, in- 
ferior to very few that acted, for — 

1. Upon letters received from the Governor and Council at Boston, 
requesting me to use my utmost and speediest endeavors to break and 
hinder the league labored for by the Pequots against the Mohegans, and 
the Pequots against the English * * * the Lord helped me to put 
my life into my hand, and, scarce acquainting my wife, to ship myself, 
all alone, in a poor canoe, and to cut through a stormy wind, with great 
seas, every minute in hazard of life, to the Sachem's house. 

2. Three days and nights my business forced me to lodge and mix 
with the bloody Pequot ambassadors, whose hands and arms, methought, 
wreaked with the blood of my countrymen, murdered and massacred by 
them on Connecticut River, and from whom I could not but nightly look 
for their bloody knives at my own breast also. 

3. When God wondrously preserved me, and helped me to break to 
pieces the Pequot's negotiations and design, and to make and promote and 
finish, by many travels and charges, the English league with the Narra- 
gansetts and Mohegans against the Pequots, and that the English forces 
marched up to the Narragansett country against the Pequots, I gladly 
entertained, at my house in Providence, General Israel Stoughton (of 
Massachusetts) and his officers. 

4. I marched up with them to the Narragansett Sachems, and 
brought my countrymen and the barbarians. Sachems and Captains, to a 
mutual confidence and complacence each in other. 

Mr. Williams states in this letter that Governor Winthrop and others 
of the Council of the Bay Colony favored his recall from banishment 
and the bestowal of other favors. It is a matter of record that Governor 
William Bradford, of Plymouth, credited Mr. Williams with averting a 
general Indian war at that time. 

Palfrey says, .Sassacus, Sachem of the Pequots, attempted an alli- 
ance with the Narragansetts to exterminate all the English settlements 
in New England. "There was great probability that he would succeed ; 
had he been able to conciliate the Narragansetts, and to enlist or over- 
awe the Mohegans, there was no power in the Colonies to make head 
against him, and the days of civilized New England would have been 
numbered and finished near their beginning. The ancient hostility pre- 
vailed, enforced by the diplomacy of Roger Williams, who, at the hazard 
of his life, visited their settlement to counteract the solicitations with 
which they were addressed. Determined by his influence, some of the 
Narragansett chiefs came to Boston and concluded a treaty of peace 
and alliance with the Colonists." 

The historian Bancroft says, "The Pequots sought the alliance of the 
Narragansetts and Mohegans. The general rising against the Colonists 
could be frustrated by none but Roger Williams, who was the first to 



426 



HISTORY OF RHODE ISLAND 



give information of the impending danger. * * * The Narragan- 
setts were wavering, but Roger Williams succeeded in dissolving the 
conspiracy. It was the most intrepid achievement of the War." 

The historian Arnold says, "Right was on the side of the Pequots. 
* * * The truthful eloquence of the Pequots seemed about to prevail 
in the wavering council of the Narragansetts. At this inimical crisis 
Roger Williams appeared among them. He was the only man in New 
Ejigland who could avert the impending evil." 




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